“What hospitality? Who said anything about hospitality?”
“Are you denying me shelter?” She swings back around.
“Denying you? I haven’t even offered—”
“I cannot believe you’d drag me all the way out here and then refuse to keep me—”
“Me? Drag you?”
“What kind of a monster does that?”
I stiffen.
“Brute, I mean.” She blushes.
I purse my lips, eyeing her hard over Clementine’s withers. My blood bubbles under my skin. And to think, I thought she was pretty! “Is there somewhere you’d like me to drop you off? A relative’s house, a friend, an acquaintance maybe? Perhaps there’s someone I can summon to come pick you up?”
“You’re not serious—”
“Very.” I turn, hauling the rest of Clementine’s gear off to the barn.
She steams after me. “You can’t just leave me alone in this terrible place.”
“I could.” I turn. “But then you’d die. And I’d be the monster you just accused me of being.” I stiff-arm my way past her gape-mouthed expression, making my way back to Clementine.
“I demand you give me shelter.” She stamps her foot.
“You what?”
“I demand you take me in and keep me for as long as I need.”
I stare at her, shocked, unbelieving.
“Look, for reasons I’d rather not discuss, I can’t keep you here. Now there must be somewhere else you can go. Surely you had a plan.”
Her face falls.
She didn’t. I sigh. What kind of girl shanghais a carriage out into the middle of nowhere without concern for her wellbeing? What’s the matter with this girl?
I scratch my head. “Do you do windows?” I say.
Her chin snaps up. “Do I do what?”
“What about the dishes? Would you prefer to do the dishes?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, surely you don’t expect me to keep you for free?”
Her lips clench tight as a pair of pliers, and it almost makes me laugh.
“What about the privy?”
She scowls.
“The floors?
She gasps.
“All right, then. Dishes it is.” I extend a hand to seal the deal.
She hesitates, her lip in a pout. Finally she drops her hand into mine. I shake it firmly, jumping at the sparks that light between us.
“But, absolutely no laundry.” She grins.
“Damn,” I drop her hand. “I forgot that one.”
She smiles, then traipses after me, circling. “But don’t go thinking just because I’ve accepted your strained offer of hospitality that I’ve agreed in any way to become your property, or your slave.” She juts out her bony chin. “Have I made myself clear?”
“Sparkling.” I push past her. “Lucky for you, I don’t believe in slavery,” I mutter.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I turn. “You’re welcome to stay until the Vapours have cleared”—I grow serious—“but after that I must insist you find another place.”
“How long before Vapours clear?”
“Couple of weeks maybe, could be a month.”
“A month!”
I reach back and slap Clementine on the arse, sending her off into the underground stable, trying not to laugh as Eyelet jumps.
“What then?” she says, primping away her ruffled look.
“Then,” I tilt my head toward the escarpment, “we’re good for another three to six months before they rear their ugly head again.”
“I see,” she stares off over the horizon. “And where is it that you live, exactly, Master…” She looks around.
“Babbit,” I mumble “Urlick Babbit.”
The words struggle from my mouth. It’s been years since I formally introduced myself. I lower my eyes to the ground.
“Urlick.” She rolls the word around on her tongue, her eyes shining. “Is there a house?”
I point to the base of the landscape behind her, to the weathered, brass porthole door, burrowed into the side of the escarpment’s base, beyond the belly of the moat. Gutter water runs past the entrance beneath a wooden pallet porch. A swing bridge made of planks and twine fixed to a pair of old trees connects the dwelling to the side of the earth. Her eyes slowly drink in the scene.
“You live there?” She points. “In that hole, in the rock?”
“That’s correct.”
She looks as though she’s drunk a vat of poison.
“Rather the perfect hiding place, don’t you think?” I lower my voice, flitting past her toward the carriage. “For someone who’s on the run.”
She darts backward as if she’s been singed. “I take it you live alone?”
“No. I live with my father.” I pick up the forks of the buggy.
“Really. What does he do?”
“He’s a scientist—”
“How interesting—”
“Not really.” She drops her hands.
I yank on the forks, wincing under the weight of the carriage, pushing it parallel with the barn.
“Have you forgotten something?” I say, catching her eyeing the carriage door.
“No.” She drags her hands down her skirts.
I drop the forks, pull myself up on the coachbox, and yank a lever, sparking the fifth-wheel running gears into motion. The axles on either side of the carriage pivot a full one hundred and eighty degrees. From there, the whole carriage sets into motion, drifting sideways, parallel parking itself in the barn. Eyelet’s eyes grow wide at the sight.
She’s never laid eyes on a self-parking coach before. But of course not, I’ve only just invented it. They don’t have everything in Brethren.
“How did you do that?”
“It’s a secret,” I say, jumping down next to her, slapping the dust from my hands. I pause, reaching for the gash at the side of her temple. “What’s happened to your head?”
“Nothing.” She ducks away. “I’ve just grazed it, is all.”
“On what?”
“On the machine that rode next to me in the carriage.”
I swallow.
How does she know about the machine? Was she watching me? Did she see me steal it? Who is this girl? Has she been sent?
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, altogether too quickly.
“Nonsense,” she scoffs. “You’re the one who stole it from—” She stops herself.
I twist my brows and stare at her sternly. My hands begin to sweat.
She purses her lips and stares back. For a long moment there is nothing but silence. Then, before I can stop her, she turns and bolts toward the carriage. I can’t let her open the door. I can’t let her see it. I lurch forward, catching her hard by the wrists. “That machine is none of your business,” I seethe, through clenched teeth.
“Really?” She yanks herself free and rubs her wrists. “I’ll have to try to remember that.”
Six
Eyelet
I follow Urlick out over the makeshift bridge that leads to the portal door to his home. The bridge swings and I grab for the handrail made of dried twisted vine, pulling back at the prick of thorns.
“Everything all right?” Urlick’s head swings around.
“Peachy,” I grin, sucking the blood from my finger. Truth is, I’m cold and more than a bit afraid of heights, though I’m not about to admit it to the likes of him.
“How old is this thing anyway?” I reestablish my gait, trying my best not to look down.
“Old as the house, I suppose. Why?”
“No reason.”
I scowl at the stench of sewer water gushing past beneath the bridge. A vulture pecks the flesh of a dead rat nearby. I turn my head and bite my lip, partly to keep my teeth from chattering, but mostly to hold down what threatens to come up, and wobble my way across the rest of the bridge.
“Are you sure you’ve got the
right place?” I jest and fold my arms, seeing Urlick struggle to open the combination lock.
He scowls at me over his shoulder and spins the lock again. “Are you always this clever?”
“No, usually I’m more.”
The vulture plucks the rat’s eye from its head. I cover my mouth and look away. I can feel Urlick smiling. What have I gotten myself into? When Mother insisted I run and hide, I’m sure she didn’t mean in the underground lair of a total stranger at the edge of the civilized world.
Mother.
I close my eyes, imagining my mother’s wax-coated body hanging from the gallows in the square. My heart races. My eyes pop back open. I blink away the tears that come, ashamed to have left her alone. I turn and stare out into the rolling mist.
My father died out here. His body was found somewhere along the road between the Follies and Gears. His hands were scorched, and the right side of his face was blackened as if he’d been burned. His gasmask was stripped from the cords around his neck. In one hand he held a lab report. The officials in attendance ruled the Vapours had overcome him. But I never believed it to be so. Mother never believed it either, though she remained silent, I know she didn’t, I could see it in her eyes.
I stare up at the Vapours pooling in the distance, over the top of the ridge. There was never any evidence found to suggest my father was asphyxiated. And he died in early spring, not late summer.
“There we are.” Urlick’s voice breaks my train of thought, followed by a startling CLUNK. A clangor of gears churns inside the lock until the door finally pops open. A blinding ejection of steam gives way to a dimly lit corridor. Butane-dipped torches dot the sides of mud walls. Grease-lacquered puddles spot the floors.
“This is it?”
Urlick smiles, says nothing, and my heart jerks in my chest. I can’t see myself living in such a place, even if it is only temporary. I’m a girl, not a worm.
Urlick reaches inside, plucks a torch from the wall, and with his other hand summons me to follow. I gulp down the clump of anxiety that’s just rushed to my throat, and reluctantly follow. I shiver, my pupils blooming as I step across the threshold into a puddle, cold water flooding through the stitches of my boot.
Urlick sloshes his way gingerly up the dark corridor in front of me, his head wreathed in a halo of torchlight. I follow close behind, ducking and darting, hurdling new puddles, fending off spider webs. I know it sounds silly, but I long to take his hand, to feel the warmth of something familiar, though I barely know him.
I don’t know what I find more disturbing, the cramped state of this chamber, its lack of light, or the abundance of millipedes dropping into my hair. Moments later we come to another door, and I can say I’ve never been so glad to see one. Hopefully it will lead somewhere more civilized than this. It’s round and made of metal like the one outside, only this one glows green and smells like aged copper.
Urlick swings his torchlight past the cogs on the lock, revealing a thick coating of rust. “Hold this,” he says, passing me the torch. He peels off his coat, tossing it to me as well. I can’t help but notice his coat smells strangely like rosewood and cinnamon, though by the look of it, I’d expect it to smell more of tobacco and chimney soot.
He rolls up his sleeves, sets his stocky legs shoulder-width apart, and throws his full weight onto the crank, biceps bulging, quads straining, ropes of muscle rippling beneath his forearm skin. His milky hands glow pink against the rusty crankshaft, his long dark locks dampening with sweat. At last the gear begins to creak, jittering slowly at first, then racing wildly around. Urlick falls forward, choking on the waft of steam that pours from the opening door. If getting in was this much trouble, I can’t imagine how much trouble it is to get out.
Urlick pushes aside the door, his pink eyes shimmering in the tiny column of light which floods through the opening. “After you.” He motions for me to enter, backhanding the sweat from his brow.
I bite my lip and peek around him into the stiflingly tiny room beyond. A sour taste invades my mouth. This room is in no way more civilized.
“You all right?” he asks, his mouth pulled tight with concern.
“Quite. Thank you,” I lie.
Turning sideways, I thread past him, careful not to catch my drapery afire on the torch now burning again in his hand. Gooseflesh blossoms on the back of my neck as my shoulder blades brush across the front of him.
The room is small all right, incredibly small; in fact, I could easily reach all four walls from where I stand. A scaffold of cedar braces and pillars supports the earth from collapsing in at the sides, held together by massive bolts. It appears to be an elevator shaft, if I’m not mistaken, much like that found in old abandoned coalmines. Above my head, the ceiling climbs endlessly. Below, a plank platform masks a bottomless pit.
Urlick joins me seconds later, his back pressed up tight against my front. The platform shimmies under his weight and my hands fly up at my sides, finding Urlick’s sleeves.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” He almost laughs.
I let go, blushing. My breath races as though my lungs have suddenly grown too large for my chest.
“Hang on,” he says. To what?
He releases a lever and the platform jumps. Bits of sour spittle launch up into my throat. I work hard to swallow them back down as the enormous steel ropes at the sides of the pillars begin to coil, screeching and straining through sets of giant pulleys. I close my eyes, clasping the pendant at my chest like a crucifix, overcome by the smell of earthworms, moldy cedar, and grease rising through the trembling, brittle timber structure.
Partway up the pulley slips, sending the platform skittering off balance. My hands again fill themselves with Urlick’s sleeves, this time not retreating. Steel ropes whir recklessly, spiraling down through the shaft, until finally catching on the pulley’s worn teeth, jerking the platform upright. Our hearts strum thankful concertos—well, at least mine does—as we again begin to evenly rise.
We continue for what seems like hours, until at last the platform comes to a fluttery stop in front of a large wooden, windowless, door, resting on a track. The kind found on the side of a steamplough boxcar. The ones used to cart lunatics off to the asylum in.
Where am I? Where has he taken me? Did he hear me in the throes of an episode in the back of his coach and decide to have me put away?
Before I can form a question Urlick steps forward and hurls back the door. It rattles wildly over the track.
I suck in a breath and close my eyes, bringing my hands to my mouth to stifle my scream.
“What?” Urlick laughs, and I open my eyes. “Not what you were expecting?”
Beyond the door stands an ordinary kitchen. Decorated in the most modern shades: red, mustard, terracotta. The walls are dressed in expensive flat-patterned paper. Exotic orchids and lilies make up the print. Hardwood kitchen cupboards stand lined with the newest linseed-oil countertops. Fashionable red-and-white-checkered linoleum tiles gleam from the floor.
“No.” I let go of my breath, and smooth my skirts. “Not exactly.”
Seven
Eyelet
“Tea?” Urlick crosses the kitchen floor in just a few swift strides, his movements so lissome, so graceful for a man.
I stumble forward, and the boxcar door rumbles to a mysterious close behind me, triggering a short siren and a lock when it meets the wall.
I jump at the sound of clattering turbines, followed by an ominous CLUNK.
“Is that the only way in or out of here?”
“The only way you need know about,” Urlick mumbles, scouring the shelves for a tin of tea to honor his proposal. “Please,” he gestures with a hand toward the dining room table in the center of the room, “have a seat.”
Gliding toward it, I run my fingers over the tabletop’s grain before dropping into a seat. Oak, I believe, which is strange. Oak hasn’t grown in these parts for over a century. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps it’s just thick-ringed pine?
I look up, further perplexed by the presence of a darkened porthole window over the sink. Why would anyone go to the expense of glass to cover a hole from which nothing can be seen? “Is that real?” I flick my chin toward the window.
Urlick turns. His piercing pink eyes startle me at first. I gasp, feeling instantly guilty. Those are certainly going to take some getting used to, that’s for sure. Though I do find them strangely intriguing—in a rather morbid, yet alluring sort of way.
“If you’re wondering if it’s operable, then the answer is, no. But if you’re talking aesthetics, then yes.”
“Oh,” I swallow, still lost on his eyes. “Of course.” I twist my hair nervously. Though I’m more uncomfortable than nervous. “Why is it so dark, then?” I push. “If it’s intended for aesthetics.”
His brow furrows. “Why, to keep the birds from crashing into it, of course.”
Of course.
I’m not sure if he’s intentionally trying to make me feel daft, or if he’s just always this wonderfully insolent. If this keeps up I’ll be in dire need of a mood barometer soon. Perhaps I’ll have to build one.
“The loo’s over there—”
“Pardon?”
“The loo.” He glances across the room. “The water closet.”
Again with the insolent thing.
“I thought you might want to freshen up a little.” His eyes traipse the length of my frame.
I look down at the stains on my lace, my muddied skirts. “Oh...yes…” I gasp, popping from the chair. It’s the first time I’ve even thought about my appearance. My reflection in the tabletop tells me it’s far from good. Mud-spattered cheeks, a squirrel’s nest of hair, dried blood smeared from my nose to my chin. How utterly charming. What must he think? Oh goodness, what must he think? I swallow, creeping across the floor toward the loo, rather embarrassed.
“You’ll find fresh clothes on a chair in the corner—”
Fresh clothes?
“I messaged ahead to have some set out for you.”
Just as I’m about to ask how, I throw open the door and the thought evaporates. I’ve never seen such a lavishly decorated water closet in all my life. The delicate porcelain sink, the granite-veined floors, a crystal aether chandelier? I touch it and it tinkles. How can this be? Such fine accessories out here in the middle of no man’s land. I run my fingers over the shiny brass taps.
Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) Page 6
