The Long Past & Other Stories

by Ginn Hale

  Looking back, I realized with growing panic that there would be no way through the throng of men behind us. The only way to escape would be to wait until the end of the demonstration and file out past the platform and through the back flap of the tent, where two of Edison’s big toughs stood guard. I recognized the stocky red-bearded man as the brute Edison had often sent after me when I’d refused to present myself at the laboratory.

  After nearly nine years of hiding, I’d strolled directly back into Edison’s grip.

  At that thought, I felt the blood drain from my face and a sick vertigo washed over me.

  He’s in the light and I’m in the dark, I told myself. He won’t see me. He’s too arrogant to care who’s in the crowd. He won’t notice me from the rest.

  I did my level best to believe that I could be right. I could get out of this place. Then, to my surprise and absolute relief, Geula caught my hand in hers and squeezed my fingers. I gripped her hand in return—just as I did on stage—sharing the assurance that we were there for one another.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  “I…” But I didn’t dare say anything surrounded by so many other people.

  Geula glanced between me and the platform, and that quick look of knowing came over her. I hadn’t told her anything about the years I’d spent as a prisoner at Menlo Park, but she seemed to understand it was Edison who terrified me. At the very least, I supposed she understood what danger a man like Edison, who worked directly for Federal Theurgists, posed to a free mage like me.

  “As soon as we can, we’ll slip out of here, like shadows. I promise,” Geula assured me. “As long as we stay calm and don’t draw any attention, we’ll be fine.”

  I nodded and squeezed her hand again.

  Up on the platform, Mr. Edison basked in admiration and applause, spreading his arms wide as if his mere existence was a marvel worthy of this entire exhibition. His hair had turned grayer than I remembered, and his paunch had become too prominent for mere tailors to disguise, but his bland face bore hardly a single worry line.

  After a few more moments, he motioned for silence. The crowd quieted.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Edison called out warmly. “It’s a pleasure to see so many of you gathered here and looking so excited! As you should be, let me assure you! I am not overstating the matter when I swear that this, my latest innovation, by far surpasses any before it. Yes, previously I collared magic and brought light as bright as the stars into your homes. But now, I have improved upon God Almighty’s loveliest and most flawed creation. Woman!”

  He turned to the curtain behind him and pulled the fabric aside to expose an automaton that almost perfectly duplicated the appearance of a young dark-haired woman. She wore a strangely dazed smile, and the light shining up from below cast unusual shadows across her face. Even so, it was obvious the woman on the platform was the same one in the photograph Geula had shown me. Liz Gorky.

  At a motion of Edison’s hand, she stepped forward and twirled around. The thin white shift she wore turned nearly transparent as she spun through the blazing electric lights.

  Metallic ribs and an automaton’s shell—an armature—encased most of her body like a second skin. Only her head, breasts and groin remained exposed, naked flesh. The tight bun holding up her long hair provided a clear view of the narrow silver collar locked tight around her throat like a choker.

  Appreciative gasps and a number of hoots sounded from the men surrounding us, though a few of them appeared aghast. One portly middle-aged gentleman standing to my right looked stricken. Even in the gloom of the tent, I picked out the furious red flush rising in his pale face. His horror only increased when he glanced sidelong and caught sight of me and Geula.

  “You may wish to avert your eyes, ladies,” he mumbled, and to my surprise, he bowed his head to stare at his polished shoes. Clearly he’d expected something wholly more mechanical.

  “Yes, lest we discover what’s under our own clothes,” Geula whispered to me. Then she returned her attention to the stage. “If that’s makeup, it’s the best I’ve ever seen. The joints of her fingers really do look like an automaton’s. And not merely any automaton’s hand, either…”

  I edged a step forward to study Edison’s Mechanical Maid.

  Geula was correct; it wasn’t any automaton’s armature holding Liz Gorky up on that stage. The long, graceful fingers were my uncle’s design, though the wrists and ankles hadn’t been crafted with the same exquisite care and looked stiff, almost chunky. Nor had the armature been fitted perfectly to the woman’s body. The silver planes caging her thighs dug into her full buttocks, leaving red welts.

  I didn’t dare push my way closer to the platform for a better view, but I guessed that Edison had cobbled together two or more of my uncle’s early blueprints. Though the inclusion of Edison’s own collar and the dazed look on the woman’s face assured me this creation was far from what my uncle had intended.

  The automaton’s armature wasn’t serving to give a disabled woman back her freedom of motion, or to empower her with even greater strength and speed that she could have hoped for from a body of flesh and blood. Edison had gutted all my uncle’s ideals and crafted the remnants into a shining steel prison.

  Up on the platform, Edison grinned and leaned theatrically towards the Mechanical Maid.

  “Why don’t you give the fine fellows of our audience a bow?” As Edison spoke, I felt a crackle in the air around the Mechanical Maid’s throat. I remembered the same feeling from when Edison had tested his collars on me. The Mechanical Maid twitched once, her expression remaining wide-eyed and smiling, and then she bowed low and rose back upright.

  Applause and a few murmurs arose from the crowd. The portly man looked up from his shoes and scowled to see that the demonstration had not ended.

  “A few skeptics among you might think that I’ve hired an actress to present to you on stage, but I assure you that this is the genuine result of my patented Mechanical Maid Automatonic Armature! At one time, this woman was a loose creature who ran wild, bringing no end of shame to her good husband. You needn’t take my word. Listen to what her husband, Dr. Mudgett, has to say.”

  A slender man sporting a thick mustache and oily dark hair stepped from behind the curtain to join Edison. Hadn’t Mudgett been the name of the proprietor of the hotel that Liz Gorky had disappeared from? Geula and I exchanged a glance, but neither of us said a word. Not in this crowd.

  “Mr. Edison has indeed created a miracle here,” Dr. Mudgett stated. “Before he consented to treat my wife with his amazing automatonic armature, I’m ashamed to say that Liz was a disrespectful creature, prone to hysteria and wanton disobedience. She could neither keep a fit house nor control herself. She spoke back to me endlessly, spent my money furiously, and wept when she could not have her every wish. I know in these modern times she wasn’t unlike many of your wives, daughters, mothers or sisters.”

  Mudgett took a moment to look out at the men gathered around him with a sincere and serious expression. And a number of them called out their agreement and grievances. Few women knew their places, these days. They took work, rode bicycles, demanded votes, and all at a man’s expense. Apparently, even the colored women were getting above themselves.

  Geula rolled her eyes, and I fought the urge to send a shock through the crowd. Though there wasn’t much that would have given me away more quickly.

  Mudgett nodded.

  “Now, we mustn’t hate them for their frailty and failings. As a medical man, I can tell you that such women do themselves as much harm as they do their families.” He spoke soothingly, almost as if he didn’t realize that he’d been the one to stir up the audience’s ire. “I have seen any number of women suffering from nervous disorders, neurasthenia and even sterility, all because they have foolishly attempted to live as men, instead of joyfully living in obedience to men.” />
  “Women like that aren’t natural!” a spotty young man across the room shouted.

  “No. Nor are they Christian, despite what they may call themselves and their organizations,” Mudgett agreed, while Edison looked on like a well-pleased ringmaster. “Sadly, until now the only way to deal with women like my own dear wife was either to confine them in madhouses or school them through brute force. But no longer! Mr. Edison has solved the problem without causing the slightest suffering or hardship for the weaker sex. Isn’t that true, darling?”

  Liz Gorky nodded.

  “Gentlemen, thanks to Mr. Edison, I could not wish for a more pliable or dutiful spouse.” The doctor smiled and reached out and pulled Liz Gorky close to him. Her expression didn’t change in the slightest as she leaned into his arms.

  “Doesn’t the good book command that a wife should be her husband’s in everything?” Mudgett asked her. I felt the air around her collar sizzle and knew from experience that fire seared through her mind, punishing her impulse to resist. But she betrayed no sign of the pain.

  Liz—or the Mechanical Maid imprisoning her—nodded again and wrapped her arm around Mudgett, who grinned.

  “Now that my Lizzie knows the pleasure of rightful submission and deference, we’re both happy. And it’s all thanks to Mr. Edison’s Mechanical Maid Automatonic Armature!”

  This time, the applause sounded like thunder. Even the man next to me gave a hearty cheer. I felt so repulsed that I had to fight down my bile.

  “Well, that’s mighty kind of you. And thank you, Doctor, for trusting me with the transformation of your wife,” Edison said once the clapping quieted. “And thank you for allowing these gentlemen to share her story.”

  Again, the tent filled with applause. Neither Geula nor I even pretended to clap along.

  Dr. Mudgett tipped his hat to the crowd and escorted Liz back behind the curtain.

  Edison remained up on the platform, beaming through the gloom at the crowd.

  “It has been my pleasure to see all the good done by all my innovations, but none more than this one,” Edison announced. “Now, if any of you gentlemen feel that my Mechanical Maid Automatonic Armature could help you to shepherd a woman in your care back to her proper place, I would advise you to leave your cards with my associates. Mr. Kern or Mr. Hays are there at the back of the tent. We are taking advance orders. I look forward to working with many of you to improve your lives.”

  A shaft of light speared into the tent as the flaps in the back drew open. Hays’s red beard appeared almost unnaturally bright in the sudden glow. Across from him, Kern straightened his bowler, which looked absurdly small in comparison to his hulking body and giant melon of a head. They’d both worked for Edison at Menlo; as well as I remembered them, I prayed that I hadn’t made an equal impression upon either of them. The fact that I’d burned down one of the laboratories made that seem unlikely, but I bowed my head and forced myself to step forward as the crowd filed out of the tent.

  Twice I found myself edging forward, and both times Geula touched my hand.

  “Running will only draw their attention and everyone else’s,” she said softly.

  I dropped my head again. Shoving my hands into my coat pockets, I shuffled behind Geula. The men ahead of us slowed our exit to a snail’s pace, as many stopped to take or leave cards with Edison’s burly associates. We edged forward, stopped, edged forward again.

  Then Geula and I stepped through the tent flaps. The air outside the tent felt fresh and clean. I pulled in a deep breath and started ahead towards a display of towering automatons built to conjure up the thrill and terror of the great dinosaurs of the west. A toothy tyrannosaur gaped down, while a huge white pterosaur hung on a chain from the ceiling. Nearer to me stood several massive horned creatures, the plates on their sides lay open, exposing the cogs and springs that would lend the thing the illusion of life with a mere spark of power.

  “There’s more going on here than just one girl being carried off by a pimp,” Geula muttered. She turned her gaze to me. “And what was the matter with you in there? Was it something to do with—”

  “You! Stop, right there!” Hays shouted from behind us. I knew his voice better than I did his flushed face or red beard. I tensed but managed not to turn back. Next to me, Geula scowled but then quickened her step slightly. Men around us turned, confused as to who Hays addressed.

  “Thief!” Hays roared.

  We marched deeper into the displays.

  “Come back here, you dirty little thief!”

  Several startled shouts warned me that Hays followed us, shoving his way into the crowd. I wanted to run but knew that would bring the security men down on me all the sooner. No one was easier to pick out from a milling herd than a single woman sprinting away.

  “Ashni Naugai! I know that’s you!”

  Hearing my real name for the first time in nearly a decade, I couldn’t keep from looking back. Hardly fifteen feet from me, with only twenty or so men blocking his way, Hays leered at me. He shoved two dapper older men aside.

  Far across the vast hall, purple bolts arced up and the air surged with a wild charge. I drew it in and then reached out and lightly brushed my hand over the massive horned dinosaur. The automaton sprang to life, rearing up and tossing its big head like a bull let loose in a china shop. Grown men screamed and shouted in alarm. When the dinosaur charged a few steps towards Edison’s tent, people all around ran. It didn’t matter that the automaton was already winding down. In the panic, Geula and I were merely two tiny figures among a mob that fled from the displays and out of the hall.

  “Ashni Naugai?” Geula demanded of me as we made our way up the stairs leading into the Women’s Hall. Plaster goddesses, muses and amazons contemplated us from pediments lining either side of the stone steps.

  “Yes, Miss May Flowers?” I responded. That only made Geula glower at me all the more.

  “I told you that wasn’t my real name.” Geula stopped to look around. Deep shadows spread between the electric lamps that lined the wide walkways of the exhibition. Twenty yards from us, repairmen in green uniforms mounted ladders to change the lamp bulbs that had already burned out. Around them, small groups of people wandered together, taking in the wonder of a world illuminated against the night.

  I scanned the shadowy figures as they moved in and out of pools of electric light. Neither Hays nor any of Edison’s other men appeared to have followed us this far. Geula and I had certainly led them on a long enough chase, crossing back and forth across the lagoons and even ducking into the terminal building as if we meant to catch a train out to Chicago or beyond. As much as I’d wanted to race directly back to the theater, I was glad we hadn’t taken the chance of leading Edison straight to my uncle’s automaton.

  “The first week we were…together,” Geula said quietly. “I told you my name.”

  “And I told you I was a mage, but that didn’t stop you from getting us involved with theurgists,” I whispered back. The moment I spoke, I knew that wasn’t the real reason for my anger and agitation. It was Edison, not Geula, who’d rattled me, and it hadn’t been her fault I’d gone to his tent. I’d walked right in of my own volition.

  A cold wind rolled off the lake. Geula shuddered and pulled her coat closer around her. I spread my fingers, drinking the strength from the flurry and shielding Geula from its icy bite.

  “I didn’t let them know anything about you, I swear.” Geula frowned. “How could I, when it turns out I don’t actually know anything myself?”

  “You know enough to get me collared.” But I couldn’t summon any real anger at her.

  “Yeah.” She snorted. “But you didn’t bother to tell me enough so that I didn’t drag you straight into some trouble you’re obviously running from.”

  I hadn’t imagined the matter from that perspective. She was right, of course. How could we protect each ot
her’s secrets if we hid them from one another?

  “I didn’t think it would matter, not once we’d moved west together.” I glanced up at the serene goddess posturing a few feet from me. A bat darted past, chasing moths that had been drawn out by all these brilliant lights.

  “So?” Geula prompted me.

  “Tell me about Boston first.” It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but I’d never shared my history, and I didn’t really know how to get the words out—or if I could.

  “All right.” Geula shrugged. “Judge Lowell discovered my younger brother in bed with his wife. A day later, she was murdered and my brother was charged. The judge had my brother hanged. I shot the judge.”

  I stared at her for a stunned moment. She made it all sound so…straightforward, as if she were describing the inevitable outcome of a mathematic equation. Perhaps, for her, she was.

  “So, what about you?” Geula asked.

  “It’s not simple…”

  “Not much is.” Geula stepped up next to me and put her arm around my shoulder. “Just start at the beginning.”

  “I suppose it starts with my parents and uncle.” I relaxed against Geula. “They came to Chicago after the floods. There were a lot of jobs then for wind mages repairing and replacing telegraph lines. They were happy, I think. My uncle met my aunt here and trained under her father as an automaton builder. Then the fire came through.” I had to pause a moment to steady myself against the guilt that welled up behind that one sentence. My parents had burned to death, and my aunt had risked her life to rescue me from the inferno of their house. She’d lost her left leg and most of her right hand protecting me. “We lost my mom and dad. Abril, my auntie, she was very badly burned. After that, the Mage Law passed, and my uncle took my aunt and me into hiding. We left Chicago and moved from place to place until my uncle finally found work at Menlo Park—”

  “In Mr. Edison’s laboratories?” Geula asked like she was guessing the answer to a riddle.

  “Yes. At first it seemed like an answer to all our prayers. Uncle Neelmani set to work improving the designs for automatons, I assisted him and cleaned up the machine labs, and Auntie Abril read to Mr. Edison’s wife, Mary. We lived on the grounds and were well paid.” I could still remember how delighted we’d all been. Uncle Neelmani had insisted on toasting Mr. Edison at every meal. He’d been certain that with Edison’s resources he’d at last be able to build an automatonic armature that would allow Auntie Abril to dance and draw as she had loved to do before the fire.