Once

by Elisabeth Grace Foley et al.

  “No.”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “Well he’ll have to find out at some point.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you remember when the gardener’s wife was pregnant?”

  “Oh.” Janine’s gears whirled as she processed. “Then you should tell him.”

  Talking with Janine was always like talking to her conscience. “I know. Maybe tonight.”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  Amanda kept her eyes on Byron, watching the way his face lit up as he laughed. “I don’t know.”

  She tried to shake the whole thing as she danced with him, five dances, and then she was tired and felt sick, so she sat down. He sat with her, holding her hand, and they watched the other dancers in silence.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to bed, my love?” he frowned.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to miss the party. Thank you, though.”

  Another moment, during which Amanda looked towards one corner of the enormous room and found Janine’s eyes shining at her.

  “Byron?” she said, just loud enough to be heard above the music and the voices.

  He turned to her.

  She swallowed. What would happen if Rumpled did find out? Would Byron ever look at her that way again?

  “I think I’m pregnant.”

  His reaction was as unexpected as it was joyful, and the look in his eyes as he put his arms around here was almost worth her anguish.

  Gradually, Amanda had to take a break from inventing because alternating between standing and sitting and focusing so intently made her nauseated. She tried to keep going anyway, but Byron bid her rest and not take more exercise than a slow, relaxing walk. Sometimes when he had to be away, she would sit in the servants’ hall and visit with them. She relished the company, and Mrs. LaFaye was always quick to cook her whatever her fickle appetite demanded. Janine became useful for helping her into and out of chairs. Doctors came and went with greater frequency as time went on.

  One evening she was frazzled from being still too much of the day and sat in the library, staring out the window at the pouring rain. “I want to walk,” she complained.

  Byron turned from his desk. “You can’t go out there, my love. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  She sighed and rested her hands on her enormous stomach.

  He studied her for a moment, then stood and walked to where she sat. He held his hands down to her.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, taking his hands and letting him heft her up.

  He hooked his arm through hers. “Let’s just take a walk through the house.”

  She smiled.

  They promenaded down the halls, upstairs along the shadowed corridors, downstairs through the sitting rooms and down the quiet ballroom where he took her in his arms and danced, silent.

  When they wandered down the side downstairs hall, Amanda stopped short.

  Byron looked at her quizzically.

  “I’d rather not go there,” she said.

  He turned around, but asked, “Why, dearest?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the heavy wooden door to the room containing the trap door to her savior turned tormentor. “It’s too cold,” she said.

  When the baby came, it was a girl. Byron wanted to name her Elizabeth after his mother, and Amanda liked the name and consented. The instant she held little Elizabeth—Lizzie—in her arms, her heart flew from her body and lodged in the big, brown eyes that were so much like Byron’s.

  Her instinct had been right. There was no way she was going to be able to give up this precious one.

  Byron suggested a nanny, but Amanda was convinced that she and Mary and Janine could manage to care for the child and he let them try. Janine couldn’t hold her in her bare, metal arms, but she could rock a cradle and play recorded lullabies, which she would for hours while the baby slept. Amanda changed, bathed, fed, and played with the child herself, creating an ache for her own absent mother. Mary would watch after Lizzie while Amanda napped or took a brief walk or worked on a new invention, but Amanda never liked to be away from her child for more than a few minutes.

  Byron and the servants assumed this was merely maternal affection, but Amanda knew better.

  Every time she was away from Lizzie for more than a moment, fear would begin to eat black holes in her heart. She would conjure visions of the little rumpled man with his red, blinking, metal eye, appearing from a trap door in the nursery floor and sneaking the baby from under Mary or Janine’s nose, and she would fly back to be with her darling again.

  She never took Lizzie anywhere near the passage to the room where she had met Rumpled. When newspapers wanted to do a story on the child of the governor and his imported wife, she always refused, hoping against hope that news of the baby wouldn’t go too far.

  And so the months passed. The baby learned to sit up and put things in her mouth. She learned that she could always get attention from Janine, because the machine didn’t know how to tell her “no.” She learned to say “da-da” to Byron, and she learned to laugh. Each day lessened the unease in Amanda’s soul.

  Maybe Rumpled was gone. Maybe he had never truly intended to take her child from her. What would a little altered man who lived somewhere under the floor do with a child, anyway?

  Then, her world collapsed.

  December rolled around again, and with it the holiday ball. Amanda dressed her baby in the laciest of tiny red silk gowns and managed to affix a red bow to her barely existent dark brown hair.

  “You’re going to be mama’s belle of the ball this year, aren’t you, baby?” she cooed.

  Lizzie gurgled and slid out of her mother’s arms to play on the floor.

  The guests had already begun to arrive, but Byron was late. In the past year, at least a dozen corporations had begun to wade into the pool of automation, which kept him both busier and happier than ever. This day, he had been asked to speak at a conference on the integration of AI into the development of motor vehicles, and while he’d promised he would be back in plenty of time for the gala, Amanda had known better. He wouldn’t be able to resist the slew of questions that would assault him after his speech, especially if there were representatives of the Tyrellian Corporation present. They were slowly coming around, and he would not be able to resist a verbal altercation that might just be the last straw in overcoming their last hesitations.

  Ridiculous man. But then, if it weren’t for Lizzie she would be right there with him. Balls were very grand and wonderful, but nothing could compare to hearing her husband expound on his vision for the advance of technology in his state.

  She would wait with Lizzie in the bedroom just another minute, and then if he had not yet returned, she would have to make her entrance without him.

  Lizzie played with her toes on the rug. Amanda smiled.

  “The time is seven thirty o’ clock,” spoke a gentle automated voice.

  Amanda scooped the baby up in her arms. “Come on, Lizzie. We can’t wait for papa anymore. Time to make your debut.”

  She left the room and started down the stairs.

  As she neared the last few steps, she heard the commotion in the ballroom halt in waves, replaced with mixed gasps and silence. She smiled. They were as impressed by her baby’s beauty as she was. She took the last step to the floor, a greeting for her guests ready on her lips.

  Her heart stopped.

  In the giant main doorway across the room stood the short, nearly bald man with rumpled clothes and one metal eye who haunted her nightmares.

  The finely-dressed attendees pulled away from the doorway like a human curtain, leaving a path between herself and the little altered man. Whispers abounded. Somewhere, she was fairly certain she heard a lady faint.

  Rumpled just stood in the doorway, staring at her in the bright lights of the electric chandelier for a moment. Then he turned his half inhuman gaze on Lizzie.

  Amanda clutched her baby cl
oser, and simply waited.

  The little man strolled into the grand room on his short legs, arms behind his back, standing straight and tall as if he owned the place. He walked to the foot of the stairs and then stopped three feet away from her. The effect of his red eye was diminished in the brightness.

  “She’s beautiful,” he said.

  Amanda held the child closer still. Lizzie began to fuss and squirm.

  He watched for a moment, then looked Amanda square in the face. “You know why I’m here.”

  Both eyes blinked.

  How was his presence so intimidating? The unbroken calm; the utter lack of mindfulness of the crowd.

  “Let’s talk in the library,” Amanda managed to choke out. Aloud, to her guests, she said, “Pardon me for a moment. I’ll handle this. Begin the dancing!”

  She hoped her voice sounded regal and relaxed, as a governor’s wife always should. But she had a feeling it was instead as stilted as the mill’s AI.

  The rumpled man followed her into the library, where she closed the doors behind them, then melted into her regular chair beside the heater, shaking.

  He stood again three feet from her, and watched her.

  The pace of her heart shot upwards as the situation sank in. “Please…”

  The red of his eye melded into the glow of the heater. “I’m here for the baby.”

  Amanda clutched Lizzie tighter still, chest aching. “Please, I’ll give you anything else. I will. I have money…”

  “I told you, I have no need for money.”

  His voice was calm. Amanda trembled. “You can’t have her. There must be something else. Land… or… gold or anything…”

  He shook his head, both eyes blinking in unison. “None of those things are as valuable as a child.”

  Amanda couldn’t swallow. She couldn’t breathe. “Who are you?”

  He smiled, a slightly crooked smile. “You don’t need to know that.”

  “But why? Why are you doing this?”

  “We had an agreement.”

  She felt dizzy. Lizzie had stopped fussing and sat still in her arms, and she pressed her hands against the baby’s back, desperate to feel her close. “You can’t prove that. It’s your word against mine.”

  The little man kept smiling and shook his head. “I could always ask for a demonstration to be held. One where both of us are given a junk pile and instructed to make high-functioning AI.”

  She had no answer for this.

  “But I wouldn’t do that,” he went on. “I wouldn’t need to.” He reached into his wrinkled coat and pulled out a copper tube a little longer than his hand and held it up to her.

  “What is it?” she asked, voice shaky.

  He gripped it in one fist. “An audio recorder.”

  Despair blanketed her. She’d heard Byron ramble often enough about the laws regarding auditory contracts. They were as binding as written contracts. As long as an offer was made and accepted with consideration, it would hold solidly in the courts.

  Tears stung her eyes.

  “Please… please. There must be something I can do.”

  He put the recorder back inside his coat and looked at her, head cocked to the right, blinking at her.

  She didn’t know whether he waited ten seconds or ten minutes before answering.

  “Very well,” he said.

  She stared back at him, waiting for the elaboration.

  “You may keep your child,” he said slowly, “If you can guess who I am.”

  The momentary speck of hope was dashed hard. “Who you are?”

  “Guess my first name within three days,” he said, still speaking slowly and calmly. “I will visit you each evening here. If, by the third visit, you can correctly guess my name, you may keep your baby.” He interrupted her as she opened her mouth to speak, “And yes, I have recorded this contract as well.”

  She tried to swallow. “Guess your name?”

  Lizzie fidgeted and began sucking her thumb.

  He nodded. “But this is your last chance,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  Then he took one last look at Lizzie, said “Enjoy your party,” and left the room, closing the great library doors behind him.

  X.

  Reflection

  When Byron finally arrived a quarter of an hour later, he found her crying in the library, gripping Lizzie against her.

  “There you are.” He approached, eyebrows furrowed with concern. “I’m so terribly sorry… I had finally gotten the Tyrellian corporation to agree to discuss terms for implementing some automation, I didn’t notice the time. The guests were wondering what happened. They said a small altered man showed up, and you had come here with him… what’s wrong?”

  If there was ever a time to tell the truth, it was now.

  “He… just wanted some money,” she said. “I gave him some and he left.” She tried desperately to still her body, to force it to stop shaking. “It scared me. I’ve never seen one before.” If she were in a fairytale, her nose would have grown to enormous length by now. Then again, a long nose would be far better than this terrible crushing weight on her heart.

  “I’m so sorry, my darling.” Byron kissed her forehead. “I can’t imagine how he slipped past the servants. I should have left the conference earlier and been here for you.”

  She shook her head, wordless.

  “Anyway, it’s over now.” He rested a hand on Lizzie’s head. “She’s asleep… shouldn’t we put her to bed? I can apologize to our guests.”

  The governor’s Christmas ball, ruined. And it was all Rumpled’s fault. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak without bursting into tears again, but refused to hand Lizzie over. She followed her husband to the nursery, where she laid the baby in her cradle, then sat beside it.

  Byron laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “I’ll go take care of the guests. But you’re exhausted from the shock… you should go to bed. I’ll be back soon.”

  When Amanda responded, her voice sounded shaky in the dark. “I think I’d rather stay here for awhile.”

  “Janine can watch her. Dearest, you need rest.”

  Amanda shook her head, afraid to take her eyes off the baby.

  Byron moved his hand to her arm and knelt beside her, eyes searching hers in the moonlight. “Amanda, tell me what’s wrong?”

  She looked down at him, focusing on the reflection of the window in his eyes.

  “Please,” he said softly. “I care about you. I want to know what’s wrong. Let me help you.”

  She couldn’t tell him. If she told him, he’d know that she’d lied.

  But—did she really want her life to be built on a lie forever?

  She tried to swallow. He kept his hand on her arm.

  “You have to take care of our guests,” she protested feebly.

  He made no move to leave. “The servants can deal with them. I’m more worried about you.”

  “You… won’t love me if I tell you,” she said just above a whisper.

  His only answer was to lean forward and hold her. “Tell me,” he murmured.

  So she spilled the entire story on her husband’s shoulder, from her father’s impulsive exaggeration, to the time the little man had first appeared, to her desperation to win his love, to the agreement she’d made with the mysterious altered human. When she related his demand for Lizzie in the library, Byron’s arms tightened around her.

  “And he recorded that, as well,” she concluded. “So I have three days to guess his name.”

  For a long moment, he said nothing. He just held her close.

  “Do you hate me?” she whispered.

  She felt his head shake. Then at last he said, “I’m so sorry, Amanda.”

  She pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “Sorry? For what?”

  He rested his hands on her shoulders. “I’m so sorry you’re in this situation. I should have realized.”

  What he should have realized she wasn’t entirely sure, but
the entirely unexpected reaction filled her eyes with tears again and she cried on his shoulder in the dark while he stroked her hair.

  She woke up in bed next to him, disoriented after a nightmare she couldn’t remember. He had convinced her at last to go to bed and let Janine watch over the baby.

  “Good, you’re awake,” he said.

  She rolled over and looked at him.

  “I’ve been thinking.” His demeanor was every inch the politician. “We need to obtain proof that both contracts are indeed recorded. I’ve never seen a recorder such as the one you mentioned. When he comes tonight, I will be with you and I’ll ask for a copy of the contracts.”

  “If he can make things like Janine out of piles of junk…”

  “I know. But it can’t hurt to check.”

  She nodded, letting herself lean into his strength and assurance.

  “You said you couldn’t find the trap door when you checked?”

  She shook her head. “I pounded all over the floor.”

  He put an arm around her and stroked her shoulder with his fingers. “We could always just tear up the whole floor.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think that will work… he specified that I had to guess. If we go in there tearing things up, he’s sure to know. And that might void the contract.”

  “Possibly.” He stared out the window, still stroking her shoulder absently. “At least I can get plans of the house from the builder’s firm. They should have records of any secret passages. I know this house was part of the underground railroad during the war, so I’m not surprised there are places I don’t know about.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “I think my father had any tunnels that led outside closed off after the war, so unless some were missed… well, the little altered man must have access to the basement, since that’s presumably where a passage below the floor would lead.”

  “What’s down there?” she asked.

  “A lot of things. Storage and plumbing and the generator and garbage disposal—I rarely go down there.”

  She pursed her lips. “Do you think… he works there?”