“Violet?” I called into the dim interior. My assistant had the day off, but should have returned by now. She knew I needed help dressing and serving. Yesterday and this morning we had baked trays full of savoury and sweet, to offer my guests. The wine was breathing and the hard liquor safely stored in its locked cupboard in my parlour.
A rapid tap on the back door, behind the café’s kitchen sent me hurrying past the circular desk that guarded the library catalogue search engine and the empty coffee bar.
Cautiously, I peered through the spy hole beside the back door, hoping to find Violet had forgotten her key. A small, ragged silhouette cowered against the building, warily looking down the alleyway. “Who?” I whispered.
The shape jumped and pressed itself closer to the door. “Mickey,” came the quiet reply.
“Mickey, what are you doing out so late of a Monday afternoon?” I cranked open the three locks, dislodged two chains and twisted the latch just so before yanking open the door. My fingers curled around the boy’s collar and pulled him inward even as I slammed the door closed again and reengaged the locks.
He was scared. Therefore, I needed to be, as well.
“You be closed a Monday. Cain’t come sooner or you’d no be here,” he wailed, with a trembling lip and a nose just snotty enough to tell me the ten-year-old orphan had cried his way back here.
“What has happened to upset you so?” I pumped water onto a dishtowel and handed it to him so he could clean his face and hands.
He rubbed at his embedded grime diligently.
“Cain’t find Toby,” Mickey said around a sniffle. I gestured toward the damp, and now very hopelessly grimy towel.
He wiped his nose on the towel, not his sleeve, as I had taught him.
“Toby is a big boy.” I said, inviting Mickey to say more. Toby was the biggest of my boys, pushing seventeen and all arms and legs and feet. The slight uptilt of his eyes and round face made him an endearing cherub long past needing his first shave. Keeping him in shoes was getting to be a problem, though his cast offs did help the littler ones.
Mickey shook his head, denying my claim.
“Toby can find his way home when he wants.” I sniffed this time.
“But that’s just it, mum. He gets lost. Cain’t read the road markers like I kin. Toby don’t know up from down without me tellin’ ’im,” Mickey protested.
There was that problem. Toby was a boy with a body too big for his mind.
“He allus stays real close to me. Holdin’ me coat tails. Today he just disappeared, cain’t find him in any of our usual places.”
“Where did you lose him?” I demanded, seriously worried now.
“By the Circus.”
Not far from Trafalgar Square.
“Piccadilly,” I sighed. For some reason that circular road always fascinated Mickey, but frightened Toby. Toby said he saw the winged bronze statue with nocked arrow—often called The Angel of Christian Charity, but was actually Anteros, god of requited love—as some kind of vengeful monster about to break free of its bronze casing and devour him.
“What were you doing there, Mickey?” I tapped my toe impatiently, hoping he’d enlighten me to something unusual that the black balloon might have been spying upon. Maybe Toby was there in Trafalgar Square, using the statue of a warrior to protect him from the vengeful angel….
Inside the darkened café, the bronze clock bonged the quarter hour. Time had slipped away, and I needed to prepare for tonight’s gathering.
Where was Violet?
“We was watchin’ t’ nobs, like you tell us to.” Mickey sounded defensive.
“Did you see anything interesting? Or useful?”
“Aye, mum. Aye, that I did. Heard things, too, I did.” Now his eyes became cunning. I’d have to pay for whatever information littered his brain in scattered fragments. Organization was not Mickey’s best talent.
“There’s bread in the pantry, and butter and cheese in the still room.”
“Cream?” His eyes brightened in anticipation. Did I say he was like a feral cat?
www.bookviewcafe.com
Copyright & Credits
Steampunk Voyages
Around the World in Six Gears
Irene Radford
Book View Café Edition September 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-280-8
Copyright © 2013 Phyllis Irene Radford
Thank You
Many thanks to my production team at Book View Café who made this volume possible:
Proof Reader: Jennifer Stevenson
Cover Art: Mark Ferrari
Cover Layout: Dave Smeds
Ebook Formatting: Vonda N. McIntyre
Acknowledgements
Why Steampunk? Copyright © 2009 by Irene Radford, first published in The Shadow Conspiracy Volume I, Book View Café, edited by Phyllis Irene Radford and Laura Anne Gilman
Weapon of Mass Destruction Copyright © 2012 by Irene Radford, first published in Gears and Levers Volume II, Sky Warrior Books, edited by Phyllis Irene Radford
The White Swan Copyright © 2012 by Irene Radford, first published in Gears and Levers Volume I, Sky Warrior Books, edited by Phyllis Irene Radford
Shadow Dancer Copyright © 2009 by Irene Radford, first published in The Shadow Conspiracy Volume I, Book View Café, edited by Phyllis Irene Radford and Laura Anne Gilman
Dancing in Cinders Copyright © 2013 by Irene Radford
Pirate Queen of French Prairie, Copyright © 2010 by Irene Radford, first published in The Shadow Conspiracy Volume II, Book View Café, edited by Phyllis Irene Radford and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
Excerpt: Night Dancer Copyright © 2013 by Julia Verne St. John, forthcoming from DAW Books 2015
v20130812vnm
www.bookviewcafe.com
About the Author:
Irene Radford started writing stories when she figured out what a pencil was for. A museum trained historian, Irene was raised in a military family and grew up all over the US. Her interests range from ancient history, to spiritual meditations, to space stations, and a lot in between.
About the Artist
Mark J. Ferrari was born in the San Francisco Bay Area, and raised by a tap dancing librarian and a junior high biology teacher, where he kept tanks full of marine invertebrates in his bedroom, and once successfully administered artificial respiration to an octopus.
His first fantasy novel, The Book of Joby, was published by TOR in 2007. It was honored as a Booksense Pick, made Booklist’s “Top Ten” for science fiction/fantasy in 2008, was a finalist for the Endeavor Award the same year, and was re-released as a mass market paperback in January of 2012. He has published several short stories in various anthologies, and currently resides in the Pacific Northwest. More info on his art and writing can be found at www.markferrari.com.
About Book View Café
Book View Café is a professional authors’ publishing cooperative offering DRM-free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.
Book View Café is good for readers because you can enjoy high-quality DRM-free ebooks from your favorite authors at a reasonable price.
Book View Café is good for writers because 95% of the profit goes directly to the book’s author.
Book View Café authors include New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, World Fantasy and Rita Award nominees, and winners and nominees of many other publishing awards.
www.bookviewcafe.com
s-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Steampunk Voyages Page 16
