A Steampunk Christmas Carol: (The Dracosinum Tales)

by Angelique S. Anderson

  “I… I don’t want it.” Langdon said quietly.

  “It doesn’t matter, your lifestyle and the choices you have made have drawn us here. We have chosen you... and when your time on Earth is done, you will be sent to the nether world to suffer with your former business partner, Professor Cornelius, for the rest of eternity.”

  Professor Granger’s face drained of all color.

  “What have I done to deserve this? I don’t want it. I don’t want it, I tell you.”

  “You don’t want it?” The Immortal one responded, it’s lovely voice taking on a cool reserved tone. A tone that scared him more than when the ethereal host was angry.

  “No.” Langdon cried out.

  “Perhaps you should come... with… me.” The voice rose in a crescendo, like the night reaching for the moon and kissing the sky with stars. It exploded with the word ‘me’ and then he could feel himself being snatched up. They started to whirling through the air, and everything around them disappeared. It was as if they were made of night, or fog, or a combination of the two.

  Langdon felt the air being sucked out of his lungs, and his eyes played tricks on him as he struggled to focus on the landscape around them. There was only nothingness… just a gray, foggy abyss. Suddenly they stopped, and the gray fog cleared. Before them stood a lovely white manor with stately columns supporting a tiled roof over a large portico.

  An aged rocking chair sat on the wooden porch, rocking back and forth with the gentle breeze blowing from the west. Suddenly, Langdon’s mind was filled with memories. Memories of a family and a father who worked too much, but loved Langdon like no other. It was his father who had instilled in him his tireless drive to work and succeed.

  It’s my home, my childhood home!” Langdon cried out, running up onto the porch to sit in the rocking chair. He closed his eyes as he rocked, remembering the times he used to run around this house, playing hide and seek with his sisters. He remembered the sound of his father’s horse galloping up, as its steel shod hooves pounded up the drive.

  His father would lead the brown Appaloosa to the barn, it’s hind quarters flashing half-white with a profusion of spots. Langdon wasn’t allowed inside the barn until the horse was secured in its box stall, for fear of spooking him. When his father had closed the stall, and thrown some hay in the manger, he would meet his son in the doorway.

  “There’s my boy. Did you balance that ledger like I asked?”

  “You bet poppa!”

  “Always balance it in your favor son, and you’ll never go wrong.” It was the last good memory of his father he had. The bearded man had draped an arm over Langdon’s shoulder as they talked and laughed together. The sun sank lower in the sky as they went into the house for supper.

  Shortly after that day, Langdon’s father had fallen ill, which was the beginning of the end for Langdon. He knew that no matter what he did, or where he went, he would always be someone who made sure the numbers balanced, and they would always balance in his favor. It’s what his poppa had told him was most important.

  “Let us not get caught up here, Langdon. We have much to see.” Langdon nodded at the faceless Immortal, who watched as he ascended the steps to the porch, and Langdon, with bright tears in his eyes, followed the Immortal One inside. The house was bustling with people running this way and that, servants cleaning and setting the table, little girls running circles around the living room and giggling.

  When one of the little girls ran right through Langdon, he gasped in surprise.

  “Mari! Oh, blessed Mari….” Langdon’s baby sister, the one he loved the most, if he ever dared to admit he loved anyone at all. He hadn’t seen her in several years, for after Mari got married, she and her husband moved inland and started a family of their own. Langdon remembered getting an invitation from her long ago, to come visit, but he wouldn’t allow himself that pleasure. He was a busy man with much to do.

  “They cannot see you as we are now looking at your past. As you can see, your family is preparing for Christmas festivities.”

  “I remember, it was the year my father died. Life went on as normal for everyone else, and I couldn’t understand it, because my life had stopped. Even my sister’s laughing and joking, as if our father had not been laid to rest only a few months before.”

  “And where exactly were you then?” he asked, though Langdon assumed the Immortal One knew full well where he had been at the time.

  “I was….” He looked around the room, “ah, there… sitting in the corner.”

  “And what were you doing at nine years of age?”

  “I was balancing the books, trying to make sure that no one took more than they should, and making sure that my mother and sisters were provided for.” Langdon sounded offended.

  “Yes, quite intelligent, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.” Langdon felt defensive, wondering just what was so wrong with an intelligent child learning to work with numbers.

  “You should have been a child, you should have left the ledger to the adults,” the Immortal One continued.

  “If I had not taken care of it, no one in my family would have. My mother was not a learned woman, and my father had been teaching me since I was five years old. I had been reading since I was four.”

  “Yes, it’s quite remarkable, you were quite the prodigy. It’s too bad your mother didn’t pay attention to that, she could have taken you places. There are many opportunities for an extra bright child. However, you were not afforded that opportunity, were you?”

  “No,” Langdon answered curtly.

  “So, do you remember what happened next?” Langdon shook his head in the negative, although the Immortal One knew that was far from the truth. “You balanced the ledger, and assumed since your father had passed, there would be no one to take his place. You volunteered to take over management of the farm, and then…” The spirit being paused, and for all Langdon’s memories, he couldn’t understand why the Immortal One would think any of those things were wrong.

  Langdon had been a prodigy by the age of nine. He had accomplished more by that age, than most children did before they left their teens. He’d leave his house every morning at dawn, to work at the mill at the end of the road. Not that he was the only child working there. It was unfortunate, but there were several children who worked alongside him.

  “Well, you brought the numbers to your mother and convinced her to fire several servants. One, whom you did not like. Do you remember that?”

  Langdon nodded his head, clearly remembering the day as if it had just happened yesterday.

  “Yes. I didn’t like her because she favored my sisters over me.”

  “And why did that upset you?”

  Langdon looked down at his feet, as if he were nine years old again. “Because her son, Daniel and I were best friends and she always had plenty of time for us. Then when Daniel died of influenza she started avoiding me. I guess it was because I brought back too many memories of her son. I decided to punish her for her indifference to me.”

  “Quite selfish, if you ask me,” the Immortal One continued, “now, do you remember who you managed to talk your mother into keeping?” Langdon remained silent. “You kept a servant by the name of Frederick. Frederick should never have been there to begin with, and you knew it. He was an escaped convict who was robbing your family blind, and you knew that as well. You kept him on, because he would take things from your house, sell them, and give most of the money to you.”

  “Yes, but I used the money to put food on the table.”

  “And how much did you pocket?”

  Langdon wouldn’t answer, because he knew that he had pocketed at least twenty percent. Not just from the things sold out of the manor, but from his earnings at the mill. He stored his money under the floorboards in his room. It had been tough going, but everything went downhill after that.

  Less than five years later his mother called him and his four sisters into
the parlor and sat them down to tell them horrific news.

  “We are flat broke children, so it is in our best interest to sell the little we have left, buy a smaller home in the city and count our blessings. Even though we’re poor, we will still have more than most. We will all have to work, there’s no doubt about that, but at least we will be together.”

  Langdon’s sisters had erupted into a cacophony of tears and crying. They whined that they would have to give up their beloved toys, and their beautiful home.

  “How long did you wait it out, before you left them?” the Immortal One asked.

  “Until they sold the house,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I took my share of the money, and everything I had saved up, and I left.”

  “You left them? You a boy of just thirteen. Left your widowed mother, and four younger sisters to fend for themselves.”

  Langdon could feel the shame creeping up the back of his neck, like a serpent wrapping itself around him. At that very moment, he wished there was a snake, or something of its equal to choke him. He did not like the judgement he felt coming from the Immortal One and wanted it to stop as quickly as possible.

  “Do you know what became of them?”

  “No, I never cared to find out. Even with my dear sister Mari… who tried to invite me to her home just a few years ago. I didn’t have time for things like family.” The weight of his words hit him like a carriage going full steam. He had forsaken all, in pursuit of ‘balancing the ledger’.

  Langdon was beginning to see why the Immortal One had said he would be their choice for the Siapheg dragon.

  Dragon? I must be losing my mind. Surely, I will awake from this nightmare very soon, and discover that some misplaced sense of self-loathing has caused me to dream it all up.

  Chapter Ten

  “Self-loathing?” The Immortal One asked, “You think that all of this is a misplaced sense of self-loathing?”

  Langdon didn’t dare answer. Fear gripped him around the throat like an iron clamp.

  “Let’s fast forward a bit, shall we?”

  In the next instant, the Immortal One and Langdon were flying so fast, the Professor was certain it would kill him. Maybe that’s it! Perhaps I’m dead!

  Don’t be an idiot. You have more brains than that. The Immortal One spoke in his mind, and he screamed out loud in surprise. When they stopped, and quite suddenly at that, they were outside a small run-down building. A shattered window with a crooked shutter hanging on the outside, indicated the structure had seen better days.

  “Where are we Immortal One?”

  “Hush.” The Immortal One held one finger up before the brightness that was his face, in a shushing motion. Just then the door to the little run-down building opened, and a woman came out with two battered buckets. She walked right through the Immortal One, and down a dirt road that Langdon hadn’t seen until then.

  “Go ahead. Peek inside.” Langdon took a few short steps and walked right in through the open door. The room was tiny and off to one side was a small counter where a few well-worn books lay. In the corner, was a small cast iron stove with a pipe leading up through the ceiling.

  On the other side of the room, a small door, from which a woman exited. Slowly it dawned on Langdon this was his sister Mira. She had grown up, now possibly nineteen or twenty. Her hair was short and layered haphazardly as if someone had cut it with a butcher knife. She still had the familiar dimple at the corner of her mouth, like a star waiting to shine again. But, that was where the similarities ended.

  Mira was skinny, nothing but skin and bones, and as they too entered the room, he could see that Renee, and Jaylene were almost as bad. My sisters! What has become of them? Where’s Lily? His eyes searched the sparse room for her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Then he caught sight of a delicately sketched picture of Lily, with a small poem written beneath it, and below the poem, two dates.

  There is only one reason why there would be two dates, and that is if… He forced himself to stop thinking after that. But, his stone-cold heart softened just the tiniest bit. His sister Lily had died, and he had never been informed.

  “You were informed, you simply chose not to read the letter that was delivered to you. You were too busy, do you recall?”

  Langdon thought about it for a moment, he was always busy… but there was a moment he could recall when he was but twenty-two. He had established a new office for himself and was beginning to do quite well after being a bottom feeder for a time. A young man had requested to speak to him on behalf of his family, said it was urgent, and Langdon had told him he didn’t have a family, and sent the young man away.

  The fellow had protested, but Langdon had rounded on him, telling him that if he didn’t leave post haste, he would be leaving in a box. His threatening manner had set the timid young man to stuttering and stammering before he finally fled out the door and down the street.

  “What happened to her?”

  “She starved to death, as did your mother eventually. There just wasn’t enough money to sustain the five of them.” The news of his mother’s passing caused his knees to buckle, and he fell to the ground. He could feel the lump in his throat rising, and as the tears spilled forth, he felt powerless to stop them.

  How could I have left my family like that? So thoughtlessly, with no one to watch over them?

  “I wish I had known, I wish I had cared to know. Look what I’ve done. How could I have let such misfortune fall on my beautiful mother and sisters?”

  The Immortal One looked down on him as he knelt on the floor. Langdon could easily imagine, if he could only make out the celestial being’s face, how it would be judging how selfishly Langdon had acted.

  At that moment, the woman who had left earlier with two buckets, returned.

  “Mother! Were you able to find anything?” It was Jaylene’s hollowed face, and pale complexion that caught his attention.

  “Fate has smiled on us this Christmas day my beloved daughters.” The woman emptied the contents of one of the buckets on the table. A few apples, some potatoes, and a large roast turkey leg spilled out. As she set the other bucket on the floor carefully, a bit of foamy white liquid sloshed over one side and soaked into the aged floorboards.

  “Goats milk, and potatoes, already cooked.”

  “Mother, where did you get them?”

  “I met a farmer down at the creek. He and his wife and children live right up the road there. They’ve invited us to celebrate Christmas with them. What do you say girls? Shall we accept their kind invitation?”

  “Without Lily?” Renae asked.

  “Without…” Mira began.

  “Don’t even mention his name, Mira. He abandoned us. He didn’t even come to pay his respects to our sister when she passed.”

  “But he is still our brother, Jayleen. No matter how he has treated us.”

  “No? Do you think we would be any better off, if he hadn’t run out on us?”

  “Now, now girls. We’ve talked about this before. There is no one to blame for our situation, and as long as we have each other we will be fine. We’ve been very lucky to have found this place for so little rent, and even now, God still provides for our needs.”

  “Lily died of starvation mother, and you insist that God has provided for our needs?”

  “My beloved Renae, you do not see things as I do. We have a roof over our heads, and this Christmas, just like Christmases of the past… out of the blue… a meal has been provided. There is always something good to come out of every darkness, and even in death, we can rest assured that our Lily has peace at last. She will never again experience hunger, or sadness… or sickness.”

  Langdon listened to his mother’s words with such intensity, he didn’t realize that everything around him, including the Immortal One had begun to fade away. His mother’s wrinkled face, cheeks sunken from lack of food, her unkempt hair. It was all his
fault... he should not have left them.

  “I’m sorry mother! I’m so sorry!” He reached out to her, in hopes of touching her hands, and just as their fingers met, everything disappeared. Langdon suddenly found himself kneeling in the middle of the floor of the main room of Octagon Inn as if he had never left. His sisters and mother, and their decrepit house were just a faded image, a memory he had never physically been a part of.

  The Immortal One stood off to one side, head tilted in Langdon’s direction as if watching him, though it was hard to tell due to the face’s lack of features. Just as his mother had disappeared, Langdon heard a great jovial laugh coming from his right.

  “Hello, young man! What can I do for you?” He watched the scene unfold before him like something being performed in the theatre. It was Professor Cornelius, alive and well, his large belly not as large as it had been when he died. His face, younger and less wrinkled. Then, as he remained kneeling, a man walked in front of him, a smile on his face as he stuck out his hand to greet Professor Cornelius.

  Well, he wasn’t that young, but Langdon recognized a more youthful version of himself, and realized this was back when he and Professor Cornelius had first met.

  “Professor Cornelius, I’ve heard a great many good things about you.”

  “And I you, Professor Granger, what brings you here, to my humble inn?”

  “I hear you’re looking to start a transportation business?”

  “Wow, how fast word travels?” Professor Cornelius looked taken aback. “I’ve not spoken to many about my idea, but it is indeed true.”

  “I just have a knack for being in the right place at the right time I guess. I thought you and I could sit down and talk about it. What do you say?” Langdon recognized the fire in his own eyes, and it wasn’t that he was much younger… but he had been still more in love with the business than the money at that point. He’d still had a desire to achieve his dreams and reach goals that most his age could only hope for.

  “Well, I think that is a mighty fine idea, I’m just shutting down the inn for the next couple of weeks. You know, allowing staff to spend time with their families and what not. We open again at the beginning of the New Year. So, let me take care of a few things here and then we can go wherever you like.”