by Maggie Allen
Your humble servant,
Phipps
“The Crystal Palace? Isn’t that the great exhibition house they’re building to display wonders from around the world?”
“I guess so. I don’t pay much attention to that stuff. But there should be lots of folks there worth a few bob.”
“I have an idea. Will you help me?”
Sanjeev fidgeted with the tattered waistcoat he wore. “Anything for you,” he said, reddening once more.
1850
In the course of a few months Eleanor turned a ragtag bunch of urchins into imaginative designers, energetic builders and skilled dancers. Together they created their own short, wheeled boards and more elaborate dancing carriages. They practiced using them for jumps, twirls and choreographed routines of all sorts. Boys and girls leapt to and fro in ever more elaborate patterns. Then they set their stunts to music.
With so much work and practice, they had little time for begging. Eleanor’s plan was to entertain crowds instead of taking from them, give them wonder in return for support for their creative efforts. Her ultimate goal was to gain wider exposure for their handicraft and skill at the Crystal Palace. But the plan divided the Bethnal Green urchins. Many couldn’t see the long term benefits for the intensity of their short term needs.
In an effort to prove the potential of her plan, Eleanor took the troupe to the streets earlier than she would have liked. She knew extensive practice was essential, but there wasn’t much time. So she performed her well-rehearsed dance before and after the troupe’s street rehearsal, and crowds slowly grew. The troupe began to find increasing coppers – even a few silvers – in the hat they kept out for donations.
As the urchins gained faith, they became more dedicated and began to help Eleanor meet her dream of a wheeled dress. Slowly the framework came to life. It was a gracefully curving cradle of eight sturdy metal strands, each ending in a fine brass wheel with its own clockwork engine. At the top of the cradle dangled a leather seat into which Eleanor’s legs would slip as if in a voluminous hoop skirt. At the same level, the level of her waist, there sat two small hand cranks to wind the eight engines. It was a masterfully engineered work, and all due to the reading, drawing and planning Eleanor had put in over the years.
Finally she was ready to decorate the frame with the help of the seamstress mothers. All of the mothers had become increasingly involved with their children’s work, pride in their dancing skills growing with every performance. Eleanor’s own mother came outside from time to time to watch them. She, too, grew in strength and acceptance every day. Many of the families had helped support her in her direst need, and she could no longer see them as lesser people. Bonding with them helped her to deal with emotional strife.
Now Eleanor showed that working together could also help with financial strife. Not all of them wanted to dance, but they had other skills that could help support the group effort. The seamstresses made costumes; the barmaids advertised performances; the peddlers traded for materials. The musically inclined formed a new kind of music, one that enhanced the wheeled street dance. Meanwhile, Eleanor taught techniques of building and design.
At long last, the team gathered to help Eleanor strap herself into her dancing framework. The mothers helped her don the outer covering, a dress made from an exquisite powder-blue silk gown, accented with elaborate lace and shining ribbons, a lucky find from a sympathetic ragpicker.
The skirt draped fully over the framework like that of a royal French lady from the last century. But Eleanor didn’t want to be so formal, nor to hide her true nature. She no longer wished to be anything other than herself, and the cloth might bind in the clockwork wheels if the dress dragged the floor, so she had the seamstresses bring the hem up. The effect was that she and her beautiful dress appeared to float over the ground.
They had a month to practice before the Crystal Palace opened, but the new dress worked so well that Eleanor had little trouble making a wondrous new routine. The opening of the Exhibition presented an obstacle, however. A group of street dancers – no matter how polished they now appeared – were unlikely to be given admittance to something so regal. Eleanor asked Sanjeev and Barlowe to sneak in and find Phipps. She described the funny little man as she remembered him, and not an hour later they returned.
Phipps wasn’t quite as he had been. He still had the charming mannerisms, but life had carved many more wrinkles into his face and had taken away much of his girth so that he no longer had the plum pudding wobble about him.
“My dear!” Phipps exclaimed, “How you’ve grown!” Eleanor extended her arms from her perch in the clockwork dress, and he took her hands heartily.
“And you,” she replied. “You’ve grown a drooping stance and gaunt look that don’t suit you.” Eleanor had learned to be honest with friends.
Phipps straightened and doffed his hat. Much worn, it was the same hat Eleanor remembered. “I fear my situation has not allowed me much joy,” he said, “until now, that is! You and your dress are incredible! You’ve built this by yourself?”
“Never! You taught me to have faith in myself, but I’ve learned to have faith in others, too.”
“Well said, young lady. Perhaps I have not given others enough credit, nor allowed them to help when I needed it.”
“I would ask your help now, Phipps, if possible.”
“Anything in my power.”
“Can you help us to gain entrance to the Crystal Palace, to dance?”
“I will do my very best, my dear!”
Hyde Park, 1851
Two months went by as Phipps tried to gain access for the urchins. Meanwhile, he visited Bethnal Green often to laugh and sing with them. One night, he explained his situation to Eleanor and her mother. He had fled Britain after a duel had gone badly. He refused to fight, and his honour had been lost. Once again, Eleanor found it difficult to understand. Refusing to harm others seemed quite honourable to her.
He had gained experience building French airships near Paris and then designed a new form of container that could revolutionise the capturing and controlling of lighter-than-air gasses. His display at the Crystal Palace consisted of versions of the containers that he hoped would renew his honour.
Finally Phipps managed to arrange a short time on the central stage for Eleanor’s troupe. That day, he led them to the Great Exhibition. In the distance, the Crystal Palace shimmered, a mass of sparkling glass and metal, like a constellation come to earth. Its imposing grandeur, still hundreds of yards away and fronted by throngs of people, nonetheless dominated Eleanor’s view.
Sanjeev showed his nervousness by taking her hand, something he had been too shy to do in the past. Eleanor squeezed tightly for reassurance, hers as well as his. They rolled along Hyde Park, the milling people little noticing them. There were so many wonders that one more group of people, even on wheeled boards, attracted but a few gawks and hushed whispers. Thousands would see them dance, but it would be difficult to compete for attention among so many incredible things.
Inside the aptly named Crystal Palace, exotic foods competed with machine oil for olfactory attention, and tall Prussian hats vied with feathered ladies’ bonnets to block the view.
“Is everything ready?” Eleanor asked Phipps.
“Indeed. I even managed to drape a ringed rope for you.”
“And our surprise?”
“Never fear!”
At the appointed time, the urchin band produced their musical instruments and struck a chord. Eleanor took center stage twirling like her old toy dancer – simple circles to a lilting tune. Then, without warning, the music jumped to life, and fifteen wheeled dancers burst on stage. They made tight circles and figure-eights around Eleanor’s majestic form. As they wheeled past, they flipped in the air, held handstands atop their boards or twisted about, all to the thrumming beat of percussion and strings.
Eleanor swung into her routine, graceful and frenetic in alternating waves. At exact musical counterpoints,
she spun the winding cranks at her side to keep her engines moving. As the band reached a crescendo, she used the rope to spin over the stage and back as if coming down the banister in her old house so long ago. The crowd gasped in awe, and from above, Eleanor could see just how large it had grown. The entire palace was watching.
It was time for the finale. Amidst leaping dancers, Eleanor wheeled to the edge of the stage, winding her cranks with fury. Then she launched into the ether. With neither rope nor wings, she flew. As one, the people below took an astonished breath, then leapt into peals of applause.
Eleanor and Phipps had incorporated air containers beneath her steel framework, and as she spun in place at the end of the routine he added the lighter-than-air gasses through a hose beneath the stage. Now she floated above as in her own airship. She flew without wings, she danced without legs. She rose above all difficulties.
When Eleanor reached the ground once more, she found Phipps working his jaw in funny circles, an expression that reminded her of his old self. She couldn’t help but giggle.
Unable to speak, he pointed behind her.
Eleanor cranked her clockwork engines and turned with a subtle shift of weight to find a short woman in a heavy cloak nodding at her. The throngs parted to a respectable distance. A tall man nearby beckoned.
As Eleanor approached, she realised who the woman and her companion must be. Her breath escaped in a rush. “Your Majesty!” she exclaimed. “I fear I cannot curtsey, for my dress is made of steel.”
“You need not curtsey, young lady. You have proven yourself of a noble spirit that we honour deeply.”
“You are most gracious.”
“Tell me, is it true that you have no legs?”
“I have legs, your Majesty, but they do not function.”
“Yet you dance, and even fly. You have given us great pleasure this day. Is there something we can do for you?”
Eleanor could hardly believe her good fortune. “If you please, Ma’am,” she stammered, “release my father from debtors’ prison?”
“Done. Albert, see to it.”
“And might I ask that you look into the system that put him there? His only crime is in loving his family and trying to provide for them.” She indicated the urchins with a sweep of her arm. “All these dancers would like their fathers returned, too.”
“You speak with great wisdom and empathy.” Queen Victoria cast a stern glance at a shuffling group of men in stiff, high collars behind her. Then she turned back to address Eleanor. “Would you consider becoming a court dancer, to entertain us in the future?”
“As your Majesty pleases, but only if my troupe is also welcome.”
“Of course.”
Eleanor flitted over to her friend and mentor, wheels abuzz. “And you would do well to employ Dr. Phipps,” she said.
“What kind of doctor is he?” asked the Queen.
“The best kind!” said Eleanor.
Phipps’ left eye gleamed, and all the urchins cheered.
When Hope Dies
Pam L. Wallace
Pam Wallace is a little bit of this and a little of that, but the sum of her parts can mostly be described by one word: family. Her stories can be found at Daily Science Fiction, Every Day Fiction, Abyss & Apex, Shock Totem, and Journal of Unlikely Entomology, among others. She is part of the badger crew at Shimmer Magazine.
Esperanza dribbled water on each seedling – not that she thought it would do much good. The tiny leaves were yellowing between the veins. Mama would have said they’d never grow right and she should replant.
She’d replanted at least ten times now, and it still wasn’t any better.
What was needed was a good rain, falling from the sky in great sheets, the pale, packed earth soaking the moisture up like a sponge, filling the arroyos until they ran clear and full through the valley. Wash away the filth and dust and all trace of disease. A new beginning. Hope for the future.
“The rain will come, Espie,” the kid they all called Prophet said, rocking on his heels and smiling at the haze-colored sky.
He was one of the whitest gringos Esperanza had ever seen – skin the pale cream color of Mama’s lace tablecloth that she only used on special occasions.
Most of the time, Esperanza wasn’t sure there was anything between Prophet’s wide-set, flat-lidded eyes and the back of his skull. But every so often, he said something that turned true. That was how he’d earned his name, since he couldn’t remember his own when he showed up in town a couple of months after all the adults died.
“Aw, crap, Espie.” Nate tossed a stone from one hand to the other, and from the mulish look on his face, Esperanza could tell he wanted to toss the stone right in Prophet’s face. “There he goes again. Tell him to shut up already.”
“He’s not hurting anything, Nate. He’s just a kid like us.”
“He ain’t like us! He’s a retar –”
“Don’t,” Esperanza yelled, shoving Nate away. “Don’t you dare call him that! He can’t help the way he was born.”
Nate glared for a minute, then kicked a clod of dirt and watched it bounce across the empty lot, skip-hopping puffs of dust in its wake. “Well, he can help what he says. Anyone can see it ain’t gonna rain.”
Parched, crusted dirt stretched far as Esperanza could see. The golden wheat fields that used to surround Huntsville were gone, replaced by fields of bomb craters that reminded her of all their pockmarked faces – and most especially Mama’s and Papa’s before they died.
“I’m hungry,” Prophet said. “Can we go eat, Espie?”
While he seemed to be about the same age as Esperanza, he had a baby-face like a five-year-old, and he didn’t act much older than that, either. At least he was easy to please. He’d gobble up a can of green beans with so much enthusiasm, you’d swear he was eating chocolate cake.
Esperanza shoved her water bottle in her backpack. “Yeah, let’s head back.” Her garden was towards the edge of town, where Mister Johnston used to grow corn. Twelve ears for a dollar, and the sweetest corn ever. Her mouth watered, thinking of an ear slathered with butter and chiles – just like Mama liked it. And then, thinking of Mama, her eyes started watering, too.
She turned to her little brother. “Vamos, Luis. Time to go.”
Slumped in his lawn chair with a blank look on his face, Luis stared at the mountains that used to be a dark green blur of trees. Now they were just naked gorges and bare rock. They used to go camping up there in the deep forest, by a stream that held the sweetest brook trout. Esperanza and Luis would splash around in the cold water chasing frogs till their toes were numb.
“Vamos, Luis,” she repeated, louder this time.
Luis startled. “Are we going home now, Esperanza? Mama’ll be wondering where we’re at.”
Esperanza bit her lip. Luis knew as well as she did there was nothing to go home to – just an empty house and two rock-covered mounds out back – he just didn’t remember he knew.
Esperanza wished she didn’t have to remember all that’d happened, either. She’d rather be building forts, playing ball, lazing in the sun by the river like a normal twelve-year-old – not trying to keep a pack of orphaned kids warm and fed. She didn’t want to worry any more about what they were going to do once the food in the supermarket was all gone. She didn’t want to speculate any more about what might be going on outside of town. And most of all, she didn’t want to ever bury another body.
She gave Luis’s lawn chair a soft kick. “Mama knows where we are. Let’s go.”
With the blank look still in his eyes, Luis stood and folded his chair. He slung it over his shoulder and plodded up the street, the chair bouncing against his side. Esperanza noticed the strips of denim were starting to fray on the edges. Cabron, but Luis would throw a fit if that chair broke.
Mama had worked on the chair while she sat by Luis’s bed, double-sewing strips of denim from old jeans to replace the worn-out webbing on a lawn chair. When it was finished, she painted a
picture of their favorite camping spot on it.
After Luis recovered and Mama was sick, he’d painted a bright red heart in the corner. The color still reminded Esperanza of the blood on Mama’s lips after a coughing fit.
After the bombs, everyone’d been pretty orderly at first. And then half the town got sick. Not radiation sickness, Papa said. Plague of some kind.
One thing Esperanza had never figured out was why all the kids didn’t die, too. Everyone in town got sick, but only those under twelve recovered.
Madre de Dios, she’d been trying to figure things out ever since last fall, and she still wasn’t any closer to an answer. Not that it really mattered anymore – answers wouldn’t bring Mama and Papa or anyone else back. “Let’s go.”
The sun blazed, radiating heat shimmers from the hard, crackled earth. The street was so dusty, Esperanza could hardly see the pavement. A good rain would wash it all clean, but since the last bomb fell, they hadn’t glimpsed even a wisp of cloud or blue sky – just a murky brown haze.
Esperanza headed for the boarded-up supermarket where they lived now. It’d never be home to Esperanza – that would always be the small ranch outside of town.
After Mama and Papa died, Esperanza kept Luis home at first, even though he’d near drove her loco asking where Mama had gone. When their food supply ran low, it’d been a relief in a way to move to town, even though the guilt had almost ate her up. That ranch had been everything to Papa and Mama, their big American dream – owning property, being self-sufficient. Mi ranchita, Papa had always called it, but Esperanza had always preferred Mama’s name: Casita de Esperanza. House of Hope.
Of course, now it wasn’t anything but a House of Empty. Just like Esperanza felt inside.
Prophet was at a standstill in the middle of the street, staring at something off in the distance. There was a heavy stillness to him that caught Esperanza’s attention.
“He’s coming,” Prophet said. A trickle of drool ran from the corner of his slack mouth.
