At least for now.
I open my eyes feeling lost and confused; in the first moments back from an episode, I’m never quite sure where I am. I hate that feeling. Like I’ve left my skin, and then suddenly been stuffed back in.
And worst of all, I know it’s not over. My episodes come in waves of two. Always a mild one, followed by something worse. And then a reprieve of a month, maybe two.
The strength restored to my limbs, I resume my climb—freezing midway up the trunk inside the hedge at the sound of approaching boots. They stop parallel to me on the path. Hot jagged breaths part the leaves. A set of piercing eyes peers through the branches. My clammy hands slip a bit. I suck in a breath, heart pounding, as the snout of a steamrifle pokes in between the branches, grazing first my arm and then my chin. It’s all I can do not to scream out, feeling the cold, smooth barrel of his gun resting along the side of my cheek.
Please move on. Please move on.
“Over here!” A voice calls from the next row. The snout of the rifle retreats.
I release my breath as his boots thunder away, and quickly descend the trunk through the leaves. Jamming the tip of my bumbershoot into the claw at the base, I activate the maze’s defense mechanism. Ten-foot solid metal spikes rip through the earth, piercing anything in their way.
Brigsmen cry out, their voices screeching. Metal gnashes through bone and tears away flesh. I throw hands to my ears to block out the sound, but it’s no good—I hear everything. The shouts, the screams, the crash of boots fleeing. Random gunshots ring through the air.
I bite my lip and count to thirty before resuming my climb, then crawl out over the top of the hedge when I reach it. Balancing myself on its stiff, sturdy branches, I scour the horizon through the fog in search of Gears. The checkpoint is at least two hundred meters from here. I’ll have to run through an open field, under the windmills, past the purification booms to the edge of the city—without getting caught by the searchlights.
I watch for a minute, seeing them sweep over the grounds like a giant eye.
Please, let me make it.
It’s a good two-meter jump to the ground, maybe more, from where I sit. But I’ve no choice. I’ve got to do it. Closing my eyes, I leap from the top of the bush, landing much to my surprise squarely on both feet. So far, so good.
“Off to Gears, are we, Eyelet?” There’s breath at my back. The words curl around me. Professor Smrt’s beady eyes bear down on me, mere slits in the shrinking twilight.
He stands, Brigsmen at his sides, their steamrifles clutched and ready. I shudder, knowing I don’t stand a chance. I make a move and they could shoot me.
“Funny, in all the years I knew your father, he never shared the secret of his maze design with me. Yet clearly, you knew not only where to find the Mother Root, but how to activate the impalement devices. Which makes me wonder…” Smrt grits his teeth. “What other secrets do you harbor, Eyelet? What other classified information do you know?”
I swallow, squirreling backward, trying to distance myself as he closes in, bringing a hand to my chest to cover my pendant. “Hand over the notebook.”
“What notebook?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I know you have your father’s notes.”
“I lost them,” I say, dropping my eyes.
“Liar!” He signals for the nearest Brigsman to raise his steamrifle. I shudder as he presses it to my temple. “Now hand it over, or prepare to join your mother and father.”
I reach down, slowly pulling the notebook from its hiding place in my boot.
Smrt snatches it away, my hand refusing to let go. A tug-of-war ensues. The cover of the journal strains then tears in half, revealing a secret flap. A small ticket of paper flutters loose out onto the wind. A storage ticket marked “Confidential,” written in my father’s hand.
It feathers down, coming to rest at my feet. I stamp on its edge and read the rest.
1460 Wortley Rd, Warehouse #47, Gears.
Item stored—The Illuminator.
I can’t believe my eyes.
Lumière. I gasp. Of course—code for the Illuminator.
Smrt’s gaze drops to the ticket under my boot. His hands release the journal. Each of us swoops to collect the ticket first, nearly clacking heads, but I prevail as winner.
“Give me that!” Smrt shouts as I throw up my hand, the wind trying to pry the ticket from my fingers. The look in his eyes tells me he knows what it is—a treasure, apparently to us both. What could he possibly want with this ticket? What does he want with my father’s machine? “Hand that over immediately, you rogue little imp!”
I stand firm and stare coldly at him. Has this been what he’s wanted all along? All the time, following my every move about the Academy—was he just waiting for me to uncover this secret? “Never!” I shout.
I turn and fling myself at the hillside, racing away as fast as I can.
“Stop her!” I hear him shout over the readying of the Brigsmen’s guns. “No! Don’t shoot. I want her alive. Now go! Return her to me immediately!”
Skirts clutched high, I twist through the rocks and down the hill, my heart alive with my new mission. “1460 Wortley Rd, Gears, Warehouse #47,” I chant, sprinting across the open field toward the fence that divides the two cities. “The Illuminator! I’ve found it!”
Three
Eyelet
I must make it to the warehouse before Smrt. But first I need to shake loose these Brigsmen.
I cannot risk entry through the checkpoint gates. I’ll be spotted there for sure. Besides, I have no work card, no papers with me. I’ll be arrested immediately. I’ve no choice, I’ll have to cross illegally through the forest at the backside of the city.
Looking back over my shoulders, I see the Brigsmen closing in, their eyes those of circling wolves. I swallow, head twisting, and burst for the woods, veering sideways through a bank of trees. It confuses some, but challenges others, their shouts mingling with the snap of twigs under their boots, as they thunder after me.
Inside the trees, I dash through a brook, then take a wicked turn, snaking through a grove of bramble-twisted saplings, hearing the Brigsmen curse as they get caught up in the spiny fingers. I’ve bought myself a small pocket of time, but not much. I need a plan, and fast.
I reach the boundary of the city and skid to a stop, heaving in breath and clutching my knees, astonished at what I see. I expected some sort of barrier dividing the two cities...but I never expected anything like this.
So tall and brutally ominous.
A tumbleweed of mechanical barbed wire fencing as tall as the windmills, jiggers back and forth in front me, separating Brethren from Gears. Its thorny spiraled curls loop in and around one another, like a massive thrasher, separating chaff from wheat. It marches side to side, tracking me like a giant soldier stricken with rickets, mimicking my every move. Shifting left when I move left and right when I move right. I don’t understand how it’s possible. How it even knows I’m here.
I suck in a breath and hold very still. The fence line stands still, too. Squinting, I scan its length, searching for clues, my eyes locking on the answer. Hidden in a bank of quills just beyond the limit of the fence on the opposite side, built into the face of a man-made ridge: heat sensors. Just like the ones my father used in the eyes of the Security Sorcerers—the mechanical gate ravens back at the Academy. I guess I was wrong—they weren’t the last of their kind in the Commonwealth.
Looking around, I spot a hole dug by a small animal at the base of the fence, about half a meter away. Tufts of fur dangle from the tips of the wire’s barbs. A gopher, I reason. It doesn’t look big enough for me to squeeze through. But there isn’t any other way.
I turn back to the fence and stare hard into its bright red sensors. The piercing light sears my retinas. I squint against the pain, holding my gaze just long enough to confuse the sensor into thinking I’m a stationary object, then thrust a quick hand before my face t
o sever the connection, just as Archie did with Simon at the Academy gates earlier.
Confused, the mechanism scans the fence line, jerking noisily left to right, until at last its beams cross, canceling each other out.
I seize the moment, throw my hood over my head for protection, jam my bumbershoot into its mechanical guts, and dive headlong into the hole. Kicking and squirming I claw my way through the tiny space, catching the button of my cloak on a barb. I look back, breath spiraling through the misty air as it holds me hostage.
The Brigsmen. They’re racing through the field toward the fence line, gaining on me. They’ve broken free of the woods.
I yank on my cloak, sacrificing a button and heave forward with all my might. The barbs seize me several more times, tearing holes in my clothes, before at last I’m released. Retrieving my bumbershoot, I run at the city, sirens sounding off behind me, as I zigzag my way through the back city streets in the heart of Gears.
“Wortley. Wortley. 1460 Wortley Rd, Warehouse #47,” I chant, finding myself in centre of the marketplace—the city’s square. I must not stay here long.
My eyes dash quickly over the street options on the main post. Blenheim right. Chatham left. Louisville straight on. Wortley. Wortley. Where do I find Wortley? The wooden board points confusingly into the middle of the market. I turn and race headlong into the square’s busy centre hoping I’ve interpreted the sign correctly. Over my shoulder I spy the throng of Brigsmen who broke through the forest, charging through the main gate, forcing their way past the guards. Soon they’ll be upon me.
Slipping through a hole in the crowd, I stumble along trying to act as casual as possible, weeding my way toward the perimeter, so as to read the building numbers as I go. 1290. 1330. 1421. At the end of the street, the breastplate armor of three Brigsmen glints. A metal cart trundles noisily through the silvery fog, catching one of the Brigsmen off guard.
I lower my gaze and dash across the street, throwing myself into a second crowd, realizing almost instantly that I’ve made a grave mistake. I’ve thrown myself into a crowd of leery-eyed and boozy-breathed men letting out of a tavern. Or being thrown out, I’m not sure which. Their voices are loud and throaty, their comments grand and lewd.
“Fancy this bit of luck!” A stranger grabs me, his fist full of my behind.
I gasp as I’m pulled away by a second, his arms wrap tight about my middle as he reels me in, my back thrown up against his chest.
“Please,” I cringe. “Let go of me!” The heels of my boots climb his shins.
He laughs, unaffected, hissing in my ear. “Where d’you think you’re going, anyway?”
I struggle to free myself, but it’s no use. His hands are everywhere. Groping me, pinching me, sifting through the layers of my skirts. His hot-liquored breath falls heavily over my chest and I cringe. “Please,” I beg. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Come on sweet’eart.” He nuzzles close. “Give us some fun.” He scratches the contours of my neck with his scraggly chin. I jerk my head to the side as he kisses me, his wet rough lips smearing across my chin.
“Please,” I say, as he pulls me in closer. “My father waits for me.”
“Your father, eh?” He laughs in my ear, his fingers fondling me from behind, slowly making way to my breasts. “What father? I don’t see any!” He throws his head back in a laugh and I seize the moment, raising my heel sharply between his legs.
“Oh!” He gasps, clutching his groin, releasing me in the exchange.
I throw him off and push my way up the street, slapping down the hands of the others. “Don’t you dare touch me,” I spit. “Or I’ll cut you, I swear!” I swing around, producing a blade from my boot. A special one, masked inside a seam. I back my way out of the crowd, flip my hood up over my head to disguise myself, and race up the road through their howls, unsure if the men will tolerate what I’ve just done.
I race down the center of the street, keeping watch out of the corner of my eye for them, as well as Brigsmen, buildings blurring past me.
Thirty-three, thirty-five, thirty-seven...
“Stop!” someone shouts.
Turning, I see the drunkard from before stumbling along behind me, clutching the centre of his drawers. “Come back ‘ere, or I’ll call the Peelers! You belong to ‘ol Barnaby now!”
I thrust myself forward, boots charging after me. Thirty-nine. Forty-three. Forty-five...Forty-seven...I slide to a stop, hurling open the wooden barn doors, pigeons taking flight. Red chips of paint flake in my hands as they rattle across the tracks. Electricity runs through my blood as I slip inside, closing myself in behind them. Laying my back to the door, I wait for the man to pass. Hearing the shouts of others gathering close by. I bend, gasping for breath, pinching a stitch from my side, my eyes straining to adjust to the darkness.
A dark, empty, dirt-floored room spills out before me. Nothing but cedar rafters held up by cedar posts. No metal. No machine. Nothing.
“This can’t be. It has to be here,” I chant, rushing forward. “It just has to be.”
A low-pitched squeal draws my head around, the rumble of train wheels over tracks. I dash behind a beam for cover and hold my breath, squinting toward the opening revealed after the noise. At the opposite end of the warehouse, stands the illuminated shadow of a man pushing something out through the now open door. A heavy red velvet drape hangs over it. Concealing it.
The Illuminator. It has to be. Whoever this man is, he’s stealing it. My father’s machine, right before my eyes! Or perhaps not, perhaps he owns it. Perhaps this is whom my father sold it to.
Whatever the case, I can’t let him have it. Not after all this.
I don’t even think. I race across the warehouse floor, following the man out into the street. Only then do I fall back against the jut in the building, realizing it could be Smrt. Twisting my face around the bricks, I’m relieved to see it’s not him, but a young man, dressed in top hat and tails. He stands with his back to me, next to a peculiar-looking horse-drawn vehicle that looks more like a box on wheels than a carriage.
Try as I might, I can’t get a glimpse of his face. It’s as if he’s hiding it on purpose. He can’t possibly know I’m here, can he? I lean out, staring at the carriage, constructed of solid sheets of black metal. Ink-stained rivets freckle its gurney. A thick circular lens serves as the only window in back, blown from what appears to be blackened glass.
What sort of person travels in such a creation? Why, it doesn’t even appear to have seats.
I crane my neck a little farther as he throws open the side door, fighting to load up the machine. I can’t let him do it. I can’t let him take it from me. Not after all this.
My eyes fall on a needle-nosed tube resting up against the side of the window. Memories flash like lightning through my brain. The carnie. From the carnival. The one who demonstrated the Illuminator all those years ago. That tube. It’s a Crookes Tube—like the one that hovered over Mrs. Benson’s head. That’s the Illuminator. It has to be. That man. He’s stealing it.
I step forward just as an angry crowd rounds the corner, pressing in on the young man, hollering and slinging obscenities his way. They call him a pillager, a vagrant, a thief, and rock his carriage, trying to steal the contents within it. They pound on the doors, even trying to jimmy the wheels loose from their axles. The young man fights them off, throws the doors shut and hauls himself up onto the driver’s mount. Something falls to the ground. He takes up the reins, slaps them hard over the horse’s back.
The horse rears up, driving the crowd back, creating an opening for the carriage to thread through.
“Wait!” I shout, surging forward, shouldering my way through the angry crowd. “Wait!” I pound at the doors. “Please! I need to speak to you!”
A second crack of the whip and the horse surges forward.
I hoist my skirts and start to run. “Wait!” I shout, struggling to keep up at the side of the carriage. “Wait!” I pound. “Please, wait!”
If I lose him, I’ve lost everything.
I can’t let that happen.
Won’t let that happen.
I’ve no hope without my father’s machine.
I lunge, throwing myself at the back of the carriage, barely catching a toe on the edge of the running boards, embedding my nails into the carriage’s seams, and hang on with everything I’ve got. The carriage surges forward, the streets of Gears fast becoming a memory.
“Stop!” I plead. My boot slips from the running boards. I swing out to the side of the carriage, dangling by one arm, struggling, trying to kick my way back up onto the platform, slowly losing my grip. “Stop, please!”
The stranger at the mount turns his head. “What are you doing?” he shouts. “Get off!”
I hang by the tips of my fingers, shocked, staring at him. I don’t know whether to scream or cry. The face of a monster stares back at me, framed in a mop of curls darker than a raven’s wing. His skin is ghostly white, marred by raised and purpled bruises. One, in the shape of an open-mouthed snake, devours his face—while the other, a purple hand, wrings his neck. He stares back at me through eyes as pink as a rabbit’s. A strange and single lock of pure white hair cascades down over his left eye. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not even in a book. It’s as though he’s escaped a freak show.
“I said, get off!” he shouts again.
I purse my lips, trying not to cry. “I won’t!” I shout, hoisting myself up higher onto the back of the coach, my eyes still shamefully glued to his startling face.
My foot slips again and I sink beneath the rooftop, striking my chin hard on the way down. Grasping for a seam, I try to pull myself up, only to lose my grip with the other hand. My heart lodges in my throat as I swing off again to the opposite side, the toes of my boots burrowing twisted trenches through the dirt behind.
Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) Page 4
