The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2013

by Angela Slatter

  “Oui.”

  He turned his left hand palm upward and placed it in the indentation.

  Juliette walked around behind Isaac. “You understand how this works, monsieur?” she asked him.

  The man grinned. “Like clockwork?”

  She nodded. “Exactement. Isaac is named after Sir Isaac Newton, and with good cause.”

  There was a snort of derision from beneath the blue mask. “Un Anglais,” he spat.

  Juliette smiled. “Nobody is perfect, monsieur.” She looked down at the controls that jutted from Isaac’s back through tiny holes in his shirt. “Newton showed us that the world, the entire universe, operates by a strict set of physical laws. These laws are consistent, and they are comprehensible, and, most importantly,” she stressed, as she manipulated the automaton’s delicate exposed gears with great care and practice, “they are predictable. As predictable as clockwork, in fact.”

  She placed one hand on Isaac’s shoulder and pressed a metal button on his spine with the other. His eyes flicked open, and the man flinched at the sight of them. Juliette knew them all too well; they were the purest white, carved from ivory and shaped and polished for weeks until almost as clear as glass. “We are all automata, monsieur; you, myself, Isaac,” she said. “Our bodies are mechanical creations, wound at birth, following our creator’s will and purpose. And, as such, our inevitable conclusions are already written.”

  She pressed a second button, and with a faint whir, the automaton raised its quill into the air and moved it over the man’s upturned hand on the desk. Juliette watched the fat man’s eyes through the holes in his mask and saw that flicker of concern she’d seen so many times before there.

  Then, in a single smooth motion, the point of the quill was plunged down into the fleshy pad of the man’s index finger and out again. He released a yelp of pain and snatched his hand back, the finger going straight to his pouty painted mouth.

  “Oh, excusez-moi,” Juliette said, her expression disingenuous. “Didn’t I mention that death is always written in blood? Your blood, to be precise?”

  Isaac lifted the quill to its mouth, which opened, revealing a silvered tongue. The automaton pressed the point against this tongue three times, as if wetting it in preparation for writing, a crimson smear left on the shiny surface. Then its mouth closed again, and it lowered the quill to the desk, close to its other hand. That hand turned, revealing a small scrap of paper, and Isaac began to write upon it with the quill. In a matter of seconds it was done, and Juliette walked around to the side of Isaac and picked up the paper. She folded it in half without as much as glancing at it and offered it to the man with a small dramatic flourish.

  “There you are, monsieur,” she said. “Your future.”

  He hesitated only a moment before taking it, but longer before opening and reading the note. When he did, his eyes widened and he laughed. Then he looked at Juliette closely.

  “You know, mademoiselle,” he said, a nasty gleam in his eyes, “I know the Swiss clockmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz quite well. I’ve enjoyed his company several times in court.”

  “Really?” she asked innocently. “You know my father?”

  “I know Pierre Jaquet-Droz,” he emphasized. “He is an old man. You seem terribly young to be his daughter,” the man persisted.

  She smiled at that. “I’m not as young as I look, monsieur.”

  He leaned toward her. “How does it work?” he asked her.

  “I told you—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “How does it really work?”

  She looked at him carefully, glanced around the room, the other guests still oblivious to the drama unfolding, each caught up in their own private scandals. Then she sighed.

  “The primary mechanism is the movement of the right arm,” she said in a defeated tone. “Getting the quill to jab the finger without actually injuring it, moving it to the right place to ‘taste’ the blood, then down to the paper . . . everything else is smoke and mirrors.”

  “I thought so!” The host of the grand masquerade, the man paying her wages, clapped his fat hands like a child, thrilled with his own cleverness. “It doesn’t actually write, does it? The casing is far too small for such an intricate mechanism.”

  Juliette shook her head. “The message is prewritten in invisible ink, a substance sensitive to light. Once the left hand reveals the paper, the text turns red. The movement of the quill conceals this.”

  “An excellent trick,” he declared, and grinned. “Never fear, mademoiselle, your secret is safe with me.”

  “Merci, monsieur,” she murmured, head bowed.

  He looked at her again, still smiling. “I was wrong earlier, wasn’t I? You are wearing a mask.”

  Juliette shrugged. “This is a masquerade, after all.”

  “Just one suggestion,” the man said. “Something to improve your act.”

  “Oui?”

  He crumpled the piece of paper in his hands. “Be a little more creative with your death predictions. Almost everyone here got the same message. And perhaps make them less obscure.”

  “I don’t understand,” Juliette said.

  He snorted again. “All we got was a name, child. One I recognize, incidentally, a doctor I happened to engage some years back to help investigate Mesmer’s claims of animal magnetism. I doubt that’s a coincidence.” He winked beneath his mask. “After all, if your precious Isaac had proven to be genuine, I was considering employing him again to look into it.” He laughed, then tossed the scrap of paper to Juliette, who caught it out of pure reflex.

  “See Jean-Luc as you leave,” he ordered her. “He will see to your pay.”

  “Merci beaucoup, votre majesté.”

  “Hush now, child,” he hissed, looking around with panicked eyes. “Mustn’t spoil the mystery.” He smiled again, took her bare hand, and bowed to kiss it. “Au revoir, Mademoiselle Jaquet-Droz, or whatever your name might be,” he said, his fat painted lips unpleasantly warm and wet against her skin.

  “Au revoir,” she responded with a curtsy.

  Then he released her and was gone, back to the masquerade, immediately surrounded by lackeys and sycophants. Juliette watched him go, waited until he was lost in the colourful whirlwind of fabric and flesh. Then she opened the crumpled piece of paper and read it. It made no sense to her, but regardless, it filled her with a terrible foreboding. She turned to the automaton. “You know what, mon amour?” she asked it. “I believe it’s time we left Paris.” She glanced out of the huge windows of the ballroom, at a flicker of lightning in the sky there. “There’s a storm coming, I think.”

  She wheeled Isaac toward the exit with some haste, past the blithely dancing nobles, who ignored her as she went. Behind her, on the tiled floor, the scrap of paper lay open, a single word on it, written in a splash of bright red royal blood.

  Guillotin.

  On the Wall

  Nicky Rowlands

  I was alone, willing the Queen to not return.

  The Queen not only wanted to be beautiful, she wanted to be the only thing standing between her subjects and abject misery. So she created a hellhole for the sole purpose of rescuing them from it, to which I was an unwilling party. Anyone who prevented her was “eliminated”, as she put it, even her own stepdaughter. That very morning she’d left, intent on doing just that. I couldn’t bear to look for her.

  So here I was, hanging alone, when that stepdaughter walked into the room, hand-in-hand with an exceptionally handsome young man. If I had eyes, I’d have cried for joy. I expected that they’d take a seat and begin reciting the many reason for their new-found love or, more gallingly, tear each other’s clothes off and start grunting away. I was so happy to see her—and not the Queen—I was only a little disgusted by the concept.

  They did neither.

  The stepdaughter glanced around the empty room and almost straight away, her gaze fell where I hung silently on the wall. She tilted her head, bit her lip in contemplation. Then, with an alm
ost imperceptible nod, she took a confident stride in my direction, grabbed my sides and said, “Let’s get rid of this evil thing.”

  The attractive suitor mumbled in agreement. The Princess waved over a servant, who swiftly bundled me into a bag. I was flung up on some high place, where I waited for hours, only to be dragged over a bumpy dirt road, collecting bruises with each mile. Eventually, I was flung down again, landing heavily on top of something lumpy, with solid bits and squishy bits. It reeked to high heaven. Back in the garbage, I thought. Well, it was bound to happen, eventually.

  Some days later, I felt a rustling. Tiny hands appeared at the opening of the bag. Small arms reached in to grip my sides. I was gently hoisted into the air. The bright of day was blinding. Details became clear slowly. First, I saw a patch of green below pale pink. Brown hair with green leaves threaded through it. Gigantic green eyes sparkling with pleasure. A mile-wide grin on a face lit up in childish glee. A glint of sunlight on delicate wings.

  I was going to be owned by a fairy.

  I hoped she wasn’t evil.

  * * *

  The fairy let out a little squeal of delight, then covered her mouth with her hand. Her giant green eyes, peeking over the top, still sparkled with mischief. She placed me back in the bag, closed the tie and hoisted me over her shoulder (at least, I presumed it was her shoulder.) With a sickening lurch, in which my body felt like it rose quicker than my spirit, we flew into the air. I don’t know how long we were airborne for, but I was glad to be in my bag—it meant I couldn’t see.

  Thankfully, I eventually fell to the floor with a gentle thud. I could hear her tiny feet pitter-pattering over what sounded like a hard wood floor. She whistled a merry tune to herself; I thought I heard the sound of a bird chirping. I could hear bashing and clanging. Occasionally she cursed or grunted in frustration. It sounded like she’d decided to remodel her entire home.

  I heard her footsteps close by, then the sound of someone plonking themselves down in front of me. Now-familiar small hands came into view as my bag opened, bathing me in subtle, warm light. I was lifted out to see that we were in a small cottage, lit by a handful of mostly-melted candles. The messy abode was full of boxes that spilled over the rickety shelves and small wooden table. They were labelled with words like ‘Trinkets’, ‘Doo-dads’ and ‘Thingummybobs’. I wondered how one distinguished between the three groups. I could also see a few trinket boxes without any labels, gathering dust next to some tacky ornaments. Days ago, I was owned by a Queen—today I was owned by the Queen of Pointless Objects. At least this one didn’t seem evil, thus far.

  And I’d been correct about the bird. In a small cage, a painfully yellow canary sat, chirping merrily. As I watched it sing, she lifted me up and placed me on a hook on the wall. The hook was a little itchy but at least I was out of the bag. The fairy stood back, looked at me and smiled. “Perfect,” she said, with a quick bob of the head. She gave her little hands a clap, giggled, then turned to neatly fold the bag I’d come in and place it in a rickety cupboard.

  For the rest of that first day, the fairy pottered around the cottage. She sang to herself as she sewed up a dress. She whistled as she stirred something in a pot. At one point she danced around the room to no music I could hear. Occasionally, she would glance at me, grin at her reflection, and then carry on. I wondered when she would decide to actually talk to me.

  That night I watched her sleep in a small green hammock, snoring like a giant bee with a head cold, until I finally lapsed into blissful unawareness.

  I was rudely awoken to the sound of pots and pans clashing and a small, angry voice screaming “Oh bubbletrumps!”. Bubbletrumps? I wasn’t sure I could handle such cuteness. I glanced in her direction to find her struggling with the mighty scrambled egg. Clearly, her magic did not lie in the culinary arts. Eventually, she triumphed and sat down at her rickety table to eat, using her magic to turn the pages of a trashy novel she was reading. Egg dribbled down her front, leaving yellow trails down her chin. Honestly, it surprised me that she had lived this long in such a cut-throat world.

  After an exceedingly long time, the fairy flittered to the sink, and gave her plate a cursory swipe with a cloth. She popped over to her little bird’s cage, replenished its seed and water, and made some silly noises at the creature. Then she began dressing for the day. For someone whose wardrobe consisted of shades of green, she took some time to select which particular garment to wear. After slipping her tiny feet into an equally tiny pair of shoes, she lightly danced over to where I hung on the wall, gazed at me and began fixing her fluffy brown hair. She worked meticulously, little pins sticking out of her mouth, while her tongue lolled from the other side. Once satisfied, she leaned forward, grinned, inspected her teeth for bits of egg—there were plenty—and then swiftly flew out of the door.

  Could it be that this tiny fairy had no idea what kind of mirror I was?

  * * *

  I’d been watching her go through her evening rigmarole for at least an hour. Every time she glanced in my direction and treated me like some everyday looking glass, I considered whether or not I should shout, politely cough or let loose a demonic laugh. Which particular fantasy came to mind depended on how humiliating a particular behaviour was.

  It was almost midnight when she flew over, a purple, sparkly pair of tweezers in her hand, and leaned forward to start plucking her eyebrows. Enough was enough!

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But at any point are you going to speak to me?”

  The fairy reeled back, her face a gargoyle of horror. She clutched her hand to her throat, her sparkly purple tweezers sticking out between thumb and forefinger. “D-did you . . . did you just speak?” she said.

  “Well, yes.” I said.

  The horror in her face faded slightly, though her eyes were still twice their usual size. “Have you always been able to speak?” She glanced around as though looking for evidence of a spell.

  “Yes, always.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me when I first found you?”

  “I suppose I thought a fairy would know what a magic mirror was. Before this, I’ve never had a master who didn’t. I was waiting for you to decide to speak to me.”

  “Well,” she said, sitting down on her chair with a huff. “I ain’t never had a talking mirror before. Mama never told me about this!”

  I waited patiently for her to realise the power suddenly in her hands.

  “So, what can you do? Do you perform magic?”

  “No, I see things. I show you things you want to see.”

  Her eyes lit up. “What kind of things?”

  “All kinds of things. Anything you want to see, really.”

  “Just things or people too?”

  “Anything includes people. Is there someone you want to see?”

  She blushed furiously and looked down at her hands. “Well, actually, there is someone.” She looked up at me, a dopey smile on her lips, her cheeks still flushed. “He’s ever so lovely but I have no idea if he feels the same or even knows my name.” She paused. “It’s Fern, by the way. My name is Fern.” She pointed at her little bird. “That’s Tinchy.” She looked expectantly at me.

  “I don’t have a name.”

  “Oh,” she said “Well, his name’s Ugra. He’s, um, a dwarf. Did you hear about the Princess going missing and eventually turning up living with a bunch of dwarves? Well, Ugra was one of those dwarves. He’s so brave and strong, though some people think he’s just an old grumble-guts, hmmph.” She raised her eyebrows. “Can I see him? Maybe then I’ll know how he feels.”

  Swallowing the urge to groan, I drew a mist across my face, much like a person would blink an eye, and there, where Fern’s reflection used to be, stood the object of her affection. She leaned in, enraptured. She studied every line of his dour face, every hair of his scruffy beard. She grinned widely when he spoke and templed her little fingers at her chin, not quite hiding that dopey grin. Here and there, she pointed out some insignificant det
ail, such as the way he furrowed his brows in concentration or the way he scratched his temple. It didn’t take being a magic mirror to see that Fern was infatuated. Her behaviour bordered on the stereotypical, except that there was something almost ridiculous about watching a scatterbrained fairy making eyes at a dwarf who looked like a bearded potato.

  This might be a long service.

  Over the next few days, Fern whiled away many hours gazing at her beloved Ugra while he gallumphed around the cottage or through the mine. Despite the irritation of having to pander to her infatuation, I had to admit that Fern was not as bad as I first thought. Though her ditziness was tedious, it led to a kind and trusting personality. She actually took the time to ask how I was or inquire as to things that interested me. I wouldn’t have called myself fond of her, but she was certainly more tolerable than I had pegged her to be. My masters still sometimes surprised me.

  “So, what do you think?” Fern’s merry little voice interrupted. “Can you show me that?” I stared expectantly, hoping for a clue as to what I’d missed. “Does he love anyone?” she pressed. At least Fern was easy to work with.

  “This might take a little while,” I said “Why don’t you do something else while I investigate?”

  I drew the mist again and looked for Ugra. I scanned his interactions with others, what he did when he was alone and, for the most part, there was nothing I hadn’t seen before. Fern was growing impatient after an hour. It took me nearly six hours to find an answer, so you can imagine what state Fern was in by that stage. Unfortunately, I had no good news for her. I saw Ugra sitting in his room, a wrinkled picture of the stepdaughter clutched in his grubby hands. His face bore the same expression that Fern’s did when she looked at him. Fern might not have been my favourite master ever, but I didn’t relish having to hurt her. I braced myself and showed Fern her beloved gazing with longing at another.

  Fern stared quietly for a long time. She scanned the image frantically, as though searching for some sign to suggest he wasn’t really in love, that he was gazing at her picture for some other reason. A look of desolation passed Fern’s face, then her pretty features crumpled into ugly broken heartedness and she lay on her cottage floor crying out her pain. It was times like these I wished I had arms to pat her back with or make her some tea. Having none meant I could do nothing but watch, as I am forced to do whenever a master’s heart is broken.