Firestarter

by Tara Sim

  But three weeks after he’d received his new arm, when his father came to the back room and told him he had a visitor, Danny’s heart began to race. He saw familiar faces over his father’s shoulder.

  Jo and Sally offered polite smiles, but he could tell they were forced. He didn’t even attempt one of his own. They’d brought with them a willowy woman with brown hair, a strong chin, and gray eyes.

  “Hello, Danny,” Jo said. “May we sit?”

  He nodded. They settled on the opposite couch.

  “Daphne told us about Zavier’s final moments,” Jo said. She faltered and pressed the backs of her fingers to her mouth. After composing herself, she continued on. “I know you might not agree, but it was a courageous thing he did.”

  Danny nodded again. “It was.”

  “Sally said you were very brave yourself, at the clock tower. We wanted … wanted to thank you.”

  Jo finally gave in to tears.

  The other woman continued for her. “I’ve heard what my son did to you,” she said, her voice high and clear, like a flute. “And I’m sorry for it. He always was headstrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Danny said.

  “It does. My Zavier is … was …” She let her own tears flow. Danny recognized the hollow acceptance of grief in her eyes, so much like her son’s. “He was a good boy, but lost. Thank you for trying to help him. None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for me.”

  Danny had a feeling she was wrong, but didn’t say so.

  They were sorry for his loss. Jo told him she would miss Colton tremendously. Danny suspected Jo had been the one to pay for his new arm, but he didn’t have the strength to thank her. He could only manage a few more polite words before they rose to leave.

  Sally stopped before him, her eyes filled with tears, and signed something before she bent down and kissed his forehead.

  He knew she had said “Thank you.”

  Cassie tried to take him to the park. It was too loud, too messy, too colorful, too everything. He dissolved into wordless panic, pressed against a tree, unable to breathe. Convinced that everyone could see him, that they would know, that they would rip him apart and make him pay for everything he’d done.

  “It’s all right,” Cassie said in the auto on the way home. “I’d hoped it would help, but …”

  Danny only pressed his forehead against the cool window, watching London roll past.

  “I didn’t know what to do after William died.” He heard her swallow, her voice nearly breaking on her brother’s name. “I pleaded with God every damn day to bring him back, because what else could I do? The world didn’t seem fit to live in without him in it.” She sighed, then reached over to pat his knee. “We’ll try again another time.”

  But Danny stayed in the house.

  One day, his father received a phone call that put an odd look on his face. Shortly after, he announced that he was taking Danny to Enfield.

  The panic returned. “No.” Never again. Not there, please.

  But his father insisted, putting Danny in the auto and driving to Enfield. Danny didn’t know why they were bothering. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want everyone looking at him when he broke down, when he screamed and thrashed and relived the worst moment of his life.

  When they arrived, Danny automatically looked for the tower and expected to see nothing. He could already feel the emptiness inside himself expanding.

  But when he looked across the green, something else filled the emptiness: disbelief.

  There was a tower.

  It looked nearly identical to Colton’s. Danny got out of the auto and drifted toward it, as drawn to the structure as much as he was repelled. He expected to see a face in the window, but the tower remained still. Lifeless.

  Of course.

  He turned to face his father. “What the hell is this?”

  Christopher put his hands in his pockets. “The mayor told me they were rebuilding it. He wanted you to come.”

  Danny trembled with rage. “It’s not going to bring him back.”

  “I never said it would.”

  He turned back to the tower, wanting to ruin it, wanting to break it down piece by piece, stone by stone. He remembered the Taj Mahal, the emperor’s last gift for his beloved wife. Maybe he also thought it could bring her back.

  This wasn’t a clock tower. It was a grave marker.

  “Take me home,” Danny said.

  Christopher sighed. “Danny—”

  “Take me home. Please.”

  Neither of them spoke about it again.

  Danny started to move more. Started to talk more. He found the small cog in the pocket of a pair of his trousers. Instead of throwing it away, he kept it there.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to his father late one night as they both sat in the back room, reading. “For how I acted.”

  His father merely shook his head. “Don’t apologize. You had every right.”

  Danny forced himself to swallow. “I miss Mum.”

  Christopher sat by his son’s side, one arm around his shoulders, turning him back into the boy he thought was gone. It was all they needed.

  The silence was a little easier after that.

  One day, Danny made himself drive to the coast. It took a while, and by the time he reached the shore, it was nearly dark. The dim sky was painted with solemn blues and purples, but in the distance a strip of yellow still streaked the horizon, all that remained of the sun.

  Danny walked onto the beach, thankful he was alone. Cold wind swirled past him, whistling in his ears, making them numb.

  He stared out at the dark ocean for several long moments. When the thinnest strand of sunlight remained, he began to wade into the water.

  Waist-deep, he shivered and closed his eyes. He wanted to feel Aetas there. The more he concentrated, the more he was sure he felt him, a dark mass of energy and power connected to the tangled ball of time. The method of keeping all of time in order with the clock towers seemed so foolish now that he sensed it this way, the way it was meant to be. Everything was interconnected. Past, present, future.

  I pleaded with God every damn day to bring him back, Cassie had said.

  Breathing even and deep, Danny took the small cog from his pocket. He stared at it on his palm, just an ordinary piece of metal now. It had once connected him to something greater. Something thicker than blood.

  Danny rested the spokes of the cog against the underside of his nonmetal wrist. He nicked his skin again and again until blood welled.

  He distantly thought that Zavier had died this way. A hero, not a villain.

  Danny was still unsure what he was.

  Only that he’d found his way to the end of his story with nothing more than a question mark.

  Blood dripped from his wrist into the water. He held his wound under the surface, letting the blood drift from his veins, savoring the sharp sting of salt against the wound.

  “Aetas,” he said softly to the water, “I don’t know if you can hear me. Or if you care. But I have an offering for you.”

  Something churned deep within the water. Brushed against his leg.

  He inhaled. Exhaled. “You took someone from me, and I want him back. I’m prepared to bargain, though. So here it is: my offering. I’ll give you half my life. Half, because he has the other half.”

  Danny’s lower lip trembled. “Take them from me, those years. I don’t want them. If you can give them to him instead … if you can bring him back …”

  He started to cry, because he knew it was impossible. He started to sob, because of how badly he wished it weren’t.

  Danny started to eat more regularly. He could tell his father was relieved by the change.

  His father was also relieved when Danny’s name was officially cleared by the Chief Inspector. A witness from Victoria’s camp had been called in to back up Danny’s story, and a prime piece of evidence—the telegraph Danny had sent from Delhi to Agra—had been provided by
Major Dryden.

  Now that he had a clean slate, he began to wonder what to do with his life. He couldn’t be a clock mechanic anymore, but there was nothing else he was good at. Cassie said she could get him a starting position at her automotive shop, but he declined. It just didn’t feel right.

  He was looking through job postings when the telephone rang. His father wasn’t home—he was busy with the disbandment of the Union—so Danny answered.

  “Hart residence.”

  “Ah, Danny! Good, I hoped you would pick up.”

  The voice belonged to Mayor Aldridge. Danny frowned, wanting nothing to do with him or his town.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “Well …” There was an awkward pause. “I was wondering if you could come to town. Today.”

  No.

  “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

  Never again.

  “But … well … The clock tower’s gone a little iffy and we were hoping you could fix it.” There was a note of desperation in the mayor’s voice.

  “You do realize you don’t need it anymore, right? Time’s not going to Stop.”

  “We would still very much appreciate if you’d come and have a look.”

  Danny’s eyes sought the portrait of his mother hanging by the telephone. He wondered what she would say to him. Berate him for being rude, most likely.

  Danny closed his eyes. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  Making the familiar drive to Enfield felt surreal. He didn’t sense his own body. He thought of himself as the auto, mechanical, functional, with no real attachment to the world. That’s what he would be today. And after this, no more clock repair. Never again.

  When he arrived, Aldridge greeted him. He was clearly excited, babbling a mile a minute. Danny patiently stood through the stream of chatter until Aldridge at last asked Danny to follow him. Danny warily followed the mayor’s steps, clutching his tool bag in one hand. They passed the tower.

  “Er … sir?”

  The mayor stopped in front of his office. There were a few people lingering nearby, talking amongst themselves and glancing in their direction. Harland was among them. His eyes brightened when he saw Danny.

  “There’s another matter I thought you might help us with,” Aldridge admitted. “Late last night, a young man wandered into town. No idea where he was, but he said he thought he was going somewhere in particular. I thought … we thought … you could help him.”

  This entire affair was getting stranger by the minute. Maybe being in a Stopped town for so long had altered their minds.

  “I really think I should be going,” Danny said, turning back to his auto.

  “Just see him,” the mayor begged. “Please.”

  Danny sighed, then nodded. The mayor opened the door and Danny stepped inside, ready to deal with whatever hapless wanderer had had the misfortune of stumbling into Enfield.

  A boy was leaning against the mayor’s desk. He had brown hair that wisped gently around a pale face spotted with freckles. When Danny walked in, the boy straightened and looked directly at him.

  Danny dropped his tool bag.

  Not amber eyes. Blue.

  But still the same.

  “Colton,” he breathed.

  He knew him. The shape of his face, the arch of his eyebrows, the bow of his lips.

  The boy frowned, confused. Danny rushed forward to grab his arms, but the boy shrank back, eyeing him distrustfully.

  “What are you doing?” the boy demanded. Even the voice was the same, but not—it was more human.

  Danny stood there, breathless, unable to believe it. The scab on his wrist began to tingle.

  “I’m sorry, but do I know you?” the boy asked.

  And there it was. The catch.

  Danny’s lips quirked up. He laughed faintly. That laugh turned louder, until the boy began to back away again.

  “They said they called someone who might know who I am,” the boy said weakly. Wearily. “Are … you him?”

  Danny put his head in his hands. “Aetas. You bloody bastard.” At some point his laughter had turned into tears. He wiped them away and looked back up at him, at Colton. Human Colton. Beautiful and unreachable.

  “You don’t know me,” Danny said. “Do you?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Danny. You don’t remember Danny.” Another shake of the head. “What about Castor? Do you remember him?”

  Another shake. It was like Colton had been born a second time. No memories—starting from scratch.

  Tabula rasa.

  Danny should have rejoiced. He should have been glad. But he didn’t feel those things. He felt betrayed, spat on, laughed at.

  The tears flowed again. He couldn’t stop them. Danny held out his hands, shaking and desperate. “Do you remember a boy named Colton,” he whispered, “who had a sister named Abigail and who loved the sea? Who read fairy tales and wanted to see the world?”

  Colton looked close to tears himself. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  Danny couldn’t do this. Not now. Not when everything else had been taken from him.

  He fumbled in his pocket and took out the small cog. “Here.” He pressed it into the boy’s hand, trying not to feel how warm it was, how human. “I don’t need this anymore.”

  He turned and picked up his tool bag before walking outside. The mayor tried to ask him questions, but he brushed past him to his auto. He couldn’t stop the angry sobs that climbed into this throat, the terrible burn of being cheated, once again, by the gods.

  But if he had stayed in that office, he would have seen the boy looking at the cog balanced on his palm, head cocked slightly to one side.

  He would have seen the questioning glance the boy gave the door.

  He would have seen the boy grow frustrated with himself, scared that he knew nothing when he clearly should have.

  He would have seen the boy form a fist around the small cog and wince when it dug into his palm.

  He would have seen the boy open his hand, surprised to find his blood touching the metal.

  And he would have seen the boy’s blue eyes flash amber.

  Danny fumbled with his keys, shaking too much to unlock the auto door. He wiped his eyes and kept trying, cursing under his breath when the key wouldn’t go in.

  Someone shouted his name.

  He turned.

  Colton stood in the doorway of the mayor’s office, looking at him as if he’d just climbed the stairs to his tower.

  As if he had been waiting all this time.

  “Colton,” he whispered.

  They were running, and then Colton crashed into him, sending them sprawling to the ground. They laughed and rolled, kissing every spare inch of skin, counting every freckle, saying each other’s names like invocations.

  “Danny,” Colton kept saying, kissing him over and over. “Danny, Danny, Danny.”

  “How did you know?” Danny asked. “How did you remember?”

  Colton pressed the bloody cog to Danny’s chest in answer.

  This close, Danny saw how dark eyelashes framed his blue eyes, the way his teeth were slightly crooked, the real, human tears that slid down his face. He could feel the warm breaths leaving Colton’s body.

  He was a miracle.

  Danny slid his hand under Colton’s shirt, pressing his palm to Colton’s chest just as Colton pressed his own to Danny’s. And there it was, the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

  Two heartbeats.

  EPILOGUE

  They didn’t go back to London just yet. They stayed in Enfield that night while the villagers fawned over them, peppering them with questions they didn’t know how to answer. Tables were dragged out onto the green, lanterns were lit, and as night fell, the celebration began.

  Danny could barely pay attention to the food and the noise and the music. All his focus was on Colton, the way he moved, the way he spoke, reconciling a clock spirit with the ghost of Colton Bell.<
br />
  Colton took in the festivities, the lights winking in his blue eyes, the glow of the fires curling against his skin and threading his brown hair with gold. A boy within their world, so familiar and yet so different. Danny saw the boy he knew there—the small smile, the warmth of his eyes. And yet, he also saw a new boy, a new awareness, a new presence.

  It wasn’t his Colton, not quite, but it was enough.

  An entirely new world was spread across Colton’s face. Danny never wanted to leave it.

  In a blessed moment to themselves, Danny explained what had happened during and after the battle at Parliament. His words were weighted with a sorrow too deep to touch, even now, with a miracle sitting beside him. That sorrow would likely always be there, a shadow at the edge of the light.

  When he reached the part about his arm, Colton leaned over and took it. He drew up Danny’s sleeve and worried off his glove, gazing at the mechanics of it, his eyes somber.

  Danny expected him to say something. But Colton only stroked his fingers over the metal, then lifted the arm to kiss the back of Danny’s hand.

  A portrait of the things he’d lost, returned in different ways.

  “Things will be different,” Danny warned him. “Everything will be new.”

  “Then we’ll start at the beginning,” Colton said.

  Danny kissed him, forgetting they were in full view of the townspeople until they started cheering and whistling. Danny jerked back, flushed. Colton, equally pink, met his eyes and started laughing.

  And there he was—his Colton. The boy who had changed everything.

  The next day they made a detour to the ocean.

  Danny parked by the beach as the sun was setting. The sand was cool, but their hands were clasped above it, warm and safe.

  Colton sat studying the small cog in the fading light. It was so odd to take him in, Colton and not-Colton, an image of two people joined as one.

  Colton noticed Danny staring and unleashed that slightly crooked smile. “What?”

  “It’s strange seeing you with brown hair.”

  “Would you rather it were blond?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t care. As long as it’s still you under there, it doesn’t matter.”