Crucible Zero

by Devon Monk

  “Would Neds be better at it?” I asked, eyeing that tremble in his fingers.

  “Maybe. Left Ned has a good hand for it.”

  “So, his right hand? That arm’s in a sling.”

  “I think he could do it.”

  “Do what?” Abraham asked as he walked into the bedroom area.

  I pulled the towel back up and turned.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened, then narrowed as a slight smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

  It didn’t take a genius to know what he was thinking.

  “Apologies. I thought you’d be dressed.”

  “How good are you at stitching?” I asked.

  “Why?” he asked cautiously.

  “No,” Quinten said.

  “I need some repair work.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Matilda,” Quinten warned.

  “Just tore a few stitches. Are you any good with your hands?”

  Abraham’s gaze flicked up to meet my eyes, his mouth doing that crooked-smile thing again. “I am extraordinary with my hands.”

  “So you can you sew?”

  “Oh,” he said like he didn’t know what I’d been talking about. “Yes. A man doesn’t go through three hundred years of being a patchwork body without knowing how to thread a needle.”

  “I don’t want him anywhere near you,” Quinten said. “I can do it.”

  “You need to save your strength for when we get to the compound,” I said. “We’ll do it here, and you can supervise. If both of you would turn around while I get my pants on, we’ll stitch me up, then that will be that.”

  “You trust him that much?” Quinten asked.

  I turned to face him. “This is a medical necessity, not a date. You’ll be right here to make sure he does it right.”

  I don’t know what he saw in my expression. But whatever it was, he swore softly and averted his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “You’re right.”

  I glanced at Abraham. He had his back turned, both hands in his back pockets, elbows stuck out as if he had all the time in the world to wait.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Just give me a second.” I dug in my duffel, and stepped into clean underwear and denim pants. I thought about putting on a bra, but the stitching would have to be done under the edge of it, and that didn’t make any sense. I did pull out a soft undershirt and held that across my chest for modesty’s sake.

  “Okay. Let’s get this done.”

  Quinten tipped his head back up. “Let me see it.” He motioned me over to him.

  I walked over and turned again so he could get a better look. He pressed his fingertips along the edge of the seam. His hand was warm, and although the tremor was noticeable, he seemed to retain good control.

  “We’ll need the small clamp. Abraham, that should be in the medical case she carries in her duffel.”

  Abraham turned around, scanned the room. I pointed at Evelyn’s wooden box, which I’d left on the cot.

  “Thread?” Abraham asked.

  “Should be in the box. Also, we’ll want the scale jelly,” Quinten said. “And the needles.”

  Abraham gathered up all of that. “Will you be okay standing?” Quinten asked me.

  “Yes.” At least I thought I would be. I was pretty sure having a needle and thread pulled through my skin was not going to be the most pleasant experience I’d ever been through. But I was hoping the scale jelly would numb it a bit.

  “We don’t have ice,” Abraham said.

  “We won’t need it,” Quinten said.

  “She feels pain.”

  Quinten glanced up at Abraham as he walked over with all the necessary items in his one hand and Evelyn’s case in the other. “The scale jelly will help with that.”

  “Is that the balm you used on me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What’s it made of?”

  “Secret family recipe,” Quinten said, before I could tell Abraham it was basically boiled lizard scales.

  Abraham walked around in front of me and placed everything on the nightstand. “Let me get the light.” He brought the oil lamp, while Quinten unpacked the needle, thread, and cotton pads from Evelyn’s box.

  I had used medical thread on Quinten. But he pulled out a bobbin with the silver life thread—Filum Vitae—that held me, and other stitched things like me, together the best.

  “Drag the thread through the balm, then spread the balm on her skin before you begin,” Quinten directed.

  Abraham had been alive for much longer than Quinten. I was sure he had stitched up himself and others a million more times than Quinten ever had. To my surprise, he didn’t argue or complain. He did just as Quinten asked.

  It was odd to see them working together. I kind of liked it.

  I kind of liked being the thing that brought a truce between them, no matter how temporary that may be.

  Abraham placed one hand on my bare shoulder.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “I’m not made of glass, Seventh. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we’ll be on the road.”

  “True.” He gave me a curious look, then knelt beside me.

  Oh. I hadn’t really thought that through. Of course he’d be at a better angle to sew from there. Still, he was close enough I could feel the heat radiating off his body, could feel the warmth of his exhalation against the bare skin of my stomach.

  “Seventh?” he asked, dredging the thread through the balm, threading the needle, and then setting it all on the cotton cloth.

  “What?”

  “You called me Seventh.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  He dipped his fingers into the balm, releasing the scent of lemon and licorice.

  “Any reason why?”

  “Old story. Uninteresting.”

  “Don’t you know by now just how interested I am in such things?”

  I inhaled, exhaled. “You are persistent. I’ll give you that.”

  “Turn just a bit.” He stroked the edge of my hip to show me which way he wanted me to move, the heel of his hand resting a moment too long, an inch too intimately.

  I arched an eyebrow and looked down at him.

  He glanced up at me. Pure innocence in his expression.

  “Seventh?” he asked again.

  I shifted my stance. “In the world I remember, the galvanized were addressed in the order of their reawakening after the Wings of Mercury experiment. You were awakened the seventh out of thirteen.”

  “Who was one?” he asked.

  “Foster.”

  He smeared the balm over my stitches, and every inch of my skin went goose bumpy. “That’s still true,” he said.

  I shivered as he moved upward, his fingers pausing beneath the curve of my breast.

  Abraham looked up. “Does it hurt too much?”

  “No,” I said as he drew his hand away. “It’s good. Warm.”

  “It should numb it too,” Quinten said. “You’ll want to clamp the widest break there on her ribs, Abraham,” he said. “And stitch between the broken stitches before you remove the old thread.”

  Abraham picked up the small clamp. “Who was thirteenth to wake?” he asked.

  “Me.”

  “And now you’re the tenth.”

  “I guess so.”

  “How long do I need to wait for the numbing to kick in?” he asked Quinten.

  “A few more seconds,” Quinten said.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Who are who?” Abraham said, his hand resting casually on the side of my hip. It was a more proper place for his hand. And though he looked a question at me, I didn’t tell him to move it away.

  “The ten galvanized,” I said.<
br />
  “You know four: you, me, Foster, Slater.”

  “Who else?”

  “Dolores, Clara, Vance, Wila, Buck, January.”

  I rolled the list of names through my head. That meant Loy, Obedience, and Helen were all dead. I hadn’t known any of them for very long, but it still tugged at my heart. Loy was a warm, joking, kind man who always tried to see the funny side of things. Obedience had been slim and slight, but her spirit was a bright joy.

  And Helen. Well, Helen had been the woman who shot Oscar Gray in the head and killed him in front of millions, framing the other galvanized for murder.

  I wouldn’t miss her. A small, dark part of my heart was glad Slater had killed her.

  One less murderer to deal with.

  “Matilda?”

  I realized I’d drifted off. It was hard to separate that in my experience, my mind, it had been only a few days since I’d seen my friend and ex-head of House Gray, Oscar Gray, killed. Abraham had been his galvanized, and Oscar’s last words begged me to make sure Abraham was okay.

  But for Abraham here, who hadn’t lived through that betrayal, and who was watching me with lines of curiosity spreading from the edge of his crinkled eyes, those things had never happened. He—well, we—had never experienced that pain.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Is the jelly numb enough yet?” he asked.

  “I think so. Try, and I’ll let you know if I feel it.”

  Abraham picked up the clamp and held my skin together with one hand. He set the clamp with the other.

  Then he picked up the needle, the balm-coated thread tucked in his palm. A sure sign that he really had done this sort of thing before. He kept his left hand spread so that his fingers were on either side of my stitching. “Take a breath,” he suggested.

  I inhaled. Held it.

  He pushed the needle into my skin. I knew those needles were incredibly sharp and the scale jelly did a good job of masking the sensation. Even so, it wasn’t exactly comfortable.

  But it was fairly easy to endure.

  “Numb enough?” he asked me.

  “Yes. Go ahead.”

  “So, you knew them? All of them?” he asked as he made very quick work of the stitching.

  “Briefly. I’d only just met most of them. And the others.”

  “Who were the three others?” he asked.

  I didn’t think he was really interested in people he’d never known, but small talk kept my mind off the tug and slide of thread and needle through my skin.

  “A man named Loy, and two women, named Obedience and Helen. You didn’t know them in this time.”

  “I might have. We all began living in the same town. I knew Foster before he was a galvanized. Slater too, obviously. Tell me about them.”

  “I’m not sure I knew them well enough to say. Loy was fun-loving. Strong and big. He loved to laugh and gamble. He and Buck got on like brothers. Obedience was a slight woman. Pale as moonlight, and fun. Bubbly.”

  He tugged the thread, adjusted his fingers alongside the seam, and started again.

  “You liked them?” he asked, his head tipped up, eyes focused on the curve of my ribs beside my breast. We were about to be stitching in very tender territory.

  “I did. They were both nice to me. Welcoming in the new girl, and all that.”

  “What about Helen?”

  “She was compact, strong. She wore her stitches like lacework over her body. Very pretty.”

  “And?”

  “And she killed a man you cared for like a father. Shot him in the head. I think she would have killed you too, if she had the chance.”

  “Hmm. You’ll need to move your hand a bit,” he said.

  I moved my hand, taking most of my crumpled undershirt with it. I tried to keep myself mostly covered, but it wasn’t really working.

  Abraham didn’t give me any flirty looks or winks as he worked his way beneath my breast. If anything, he became more focused on the stitches—small, tight, quick, and more gentle.

  Which was good, because every stitch stung more than the next.

  “Who was the man I cared about?” he asked.

  “Oscar Gray. He was . . .” I paused, sucked in a breath, and held it as he worked his way up to the very delicate skin between my breasts.

  “Almost done,” he said softly. “Do you need more jelly here?”

  I shook my head. “I’m okay.”

  “Oscar?” he asked, making the last quick set of stitches.

  “Your friend. He was head of House Gray. Nice man. Took me in to protect me from the other Houses using me for their profit. Which didn’t go very well, since he got shot, you got filled full of Shelley dust, and we had to run for our lives while saving Quinten from being imprisoned.”

  He placed the last stitches. “It is an interesting life you’ve led, Matilda Case.”

  “Several interesting lives, actually,” I agreed. “Is that it?”

  He nodded, turned for the tiny scissors, which Quinten held out for him. “Is the tie-off all right?” he asked.

  I glanced down between my breasts. He had a fine hand with thread, each of the stitches holding my skin together evenly spaced and as small as was practical. At the end of my seam, he’d crisscrossed the thread so that it created an eight-pointed star.

  “You embroidered me?”

  “I can take out two of the stitches and leave an X there if you want, but I thought the seam needed reinforcing. Star stitch seems to do the trick, especially in delicate areas, where the stitches are much smaller.”

  It was pretty. Actually, it was the first time I’d ever thought of my stitches as something that could be beautiful.

  “I like it,” I said.

  “Let me see,” Quinten asked.

  He’d been quiet through most of the actual work. I turned his way, my hand covering my breast, my shirt covering my other breast.

  Quinten didn’t even glance at my breast. He had me slowly turn so he could inspect the stitches from my ribs to cleavage.

  “This is good. Very good,” he finally said.

  “Thank you,” Abraham said.

  “Spread another thin coat of jelly and pull out the old threads; then we’ll be done.”

  I sighed and let Abraham get busy following Quinten’s orders, which he did without complaint.

  After it was done and the old thread was removed, Abraham gently wiped the clean cotton over the seam one last time.

  “Very nicely done, Abraham,” Quinten said. “Very nicely done.”

  “I’m glad you approve, Mr. Case.” Abraham set the last of the things down on the nightstand again and put the lid back on the tin of jelly.

  He pushed up onto his feet. “How are you feeling, Matilda?” he asked.

  “Other than half-naked and cold? Good.”

  “Good.” He stood there, looking at me like maybe he could do something about both of those things.

  “So, if you’d step out, I’ll get dressed,” I said.

  “Of course.” He took a step to walk past me, and I tipped my head back a bit to watch him.

  A wave of dizziness slipped over me. I panicked and grabbed his arm. I didn’t want this time to slip away. I didn’t want him to slip away.

  “Matilda?” He paused.

  “Are you okay?” Quinten asked.

  “I’m fine.” No roses, no bells. But my concussion was getting in the way of me trying to act like everything was okay.

  I let go of his arm, but Abraham was having nothing of it. He wrapped his arms around me, helping to hold my hand against my undershirt so I didn’t drop it.

  “Get her to the bed,” Quinten said.

  “Fine. I’m fine,” I repeated. Neither of them was listening to me.

  Abraham walked me over to the cot
I’d slept in and sat me there, crouching to get a look at my eyes.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” he asked.

  I counted probably three-ish, but wasn’t about to bank on that.

  “I just looked up too quickly,” I said. “Knocked my head yesterday, remember?”

  “Is that all it was?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t want to tell him about the timeways. He wouldn’t believe me anyway.

  “Not the painful amount of stitching you just went through?”

  “I don’t hurt now, and it’s done. I think it’s just a dizzy spell left over from the bump on my head. If you’d give me some privacy, I’ll get dressed and put on my boots. We can all eat something before we get back on those bikes and hit the road.”

  “Are you sure?” He bit his bottom lip and frowned. He was so sincere, it caught at my heart a moment. But then I remembered this was not the Abraham I knew. This was not my Abraham.

  He had kissed me like my Abraham. He had touched me like my Abraham.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Go on, now. We have people to save, remember?” I pointed at the door behind him.

  “I suppose we do,” he said. “But I do hope you remember you’re people too.”

  And then he walked out of the room.

  I had no idea what he meant by that.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Quinten asked.

  “Cold, bruised, half-naked, and hungry. I’m gold to the gills. Thanks.”

  “What really just happened?”

  I frowned.

  “You were terrified when you grabbed his arm.”

  “I wasn’t terrified.”

  “Matilda,” he said, “please. What’s wrong?”

  I took a breath, let it out. “Do you remember me telling you about the Wings of Mercury experiment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know if any part of that machine might still be around today?”

  “I haven’t ever heard of it.”

  “Back in my time,” I said, “it was our ancestor Alveré Case who built the machine.”

  “Our great-however-many-greats-grandfather was a time traveler?”

  “No. He built a machine he thought would stop time. Instead, it broke time, or, in this reality, it just sort of bent it out of shape. But I think . . . I think there might be a piece of the machine that’s still causing those timeways I told you about.”