Lumière (The Illumination Paradox)

by Garlick, Jacqueline E.

  Bertie skitters, flushed.

  “That’s not possible. Is it?” My face flushes red. “Of course not. What are you thinking?” I fling myself around again, startling Bertie. “Why would someone like her be interested in a creature like me?” I bend, staring at my marred reflection in the side of Bertie’s nickel-plated gas tank, dragging a finger down the fang of the open-mouthed snake mark on my cheek. You’re an abomination, I hear my father say. An error. A defect. A disgrace.

  I snap up. A spear of rage rises between my ribs. “She can’t be. No one could. Even my own father couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

  I cast the wrench across the room at the wall, where it sticks. “She must have another motive.”

  Bertie shudders.

  “Whatever’s going on in that pretty little head of hers, mark my words: things will be different soon. Once I find a way to get that blasted machine working”—I point the wrench—“I’ll be able to transform myself from the monster of this house to the master of it, then everything—absolutely everything—will be different.”

  Sixteen

  Eyelet

  I step from the dark tunnel into the equally gloomy corridor, race up the stairs, and swing open the back kitchen door. Luckily the tea towel plug is still in place. I slip through, panther-quiet, unnerved at having been so close to what I hoped was my father’s machine and yet missing out on the opportunity to unveil it. I vow to return at my first chance.

  I turn around and run smack into Iris.

  She jumps back, looking alarmed. Her eyes scan the hallway behind me in search of Urlick.

  “It’s all right,” I say, sweeping the cobwebs from my hair. “No need to alert him. He already knows. He’s the one who sent me packing.”

  She smirks, and I swear I hear her laugh as she turns her prissy little self back to her dishes.

  “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to retire into the study for a while,” I say, smacking the dust from my skirts. “I think I’ve had enough adventure for one day.”

  Iris glares at me as I pass.

  “Don’t worry, I promise I won’t get into anything.” Much. I cross my fingers behind my back, so I don’t have to feel guilty over what I’m about to do. I left some unfinished business in the study yesterday. And there’s just enough time before lunch for me to complete it. I pat the ostrich on both its heads as I enter, then fall into a chair in the mote-swizzled room.

  Iris snorts, eyeing an unfolded basket of laundry on a chair. When I don’t move, she takes up the basket and stomps up the stairs. Precisely what I wanted her to do.

  I wait until I hear the click of the lock at the top before I leap to my feet and race across the room to the mantel, snatching a doily up off the armchair on the way. Aether light crackles, dancing in streaks like a storm across the ceiling. Eyes peer down on me from every wall.

  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these heads.

  I swallow, doing my best to ignore them, and reach for the jar, using the doily to clean off the remaining smutch, gasping at what I see.

  Inside the glass churns the strangest bit of stygian weather: a writhing, twisting, wisp-like cloud, black as the Mariah that comes to collect the dead, and just about as frightening. Like someone’s captured and bottled a wretched storm. I stand there, captivated by its eerie presence, monitoring the twist and turn of its endless journey, running a finger over the glass, and pull back when I realize it’s following.

  Why on earth would it do that? I lean in a little closer, seeing bits of cloud break off. Like dark fingers they pry at the seal at the base of the glass. I swallow, horrified at the thought of any of it escaping.

  My gaze drops to the plinth, still covered in smutch. Using the remainder of the doily I quickly clean it off. A square of dark-veined marble appears, the color of a twilight sky. Screwed to the front of it is a tiny square brass plaque, some sort of identification marker, but instead of words it’s engraved, strangely, with a string of numbers—4690073 —followed by the letters H.H.B.

  I straighten; my eyes are drawn to the peculiar-looking picture hanging on the wall directly behind the jar. I don’t remember that being there yesterday, but perhaps I was too preoccupied with all the heads. I stare at the picture, running a finger over its frame, cut from the same marble as the plinth. The glass is coated in a thick layer of dust. I reach up, quickly scouring a tiny hole, through which I spot a drawing. The paper it’s on is very yellow and the ink is smudged here and there, as if it’s been water damaged over the years, but still the overall image is clear: it’s a map. I’ve found a map of the Follies. I scour the hole bigger and bigger, confirming it is in fact a drawing of the Ramshackle Follies in its entirety, from the edge of Gears forward to the end of the escarpment.

  My heart jumps as my eyes soak it in. Every detail, every river, every creek, every bend in every road, painstakingly rendered. And then, mysteriously—there’s nothing. The upper left corner of the map has been left completely empty. The last quarter is simply blank. Nothing but a span of yellow paper. No label. No explanation. It’s as if the world is flat and this were the end of it, the jagged cliffs of Ramshackle’s escarpment the last known destination.

  I scrub the glass again and again to be sure my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me. But there’s nothing. There’s absolutely nothing there. Perhaps the cartographer forgot to finish...or perhaps he died before he was able. What other reason could there be for leaving a formal map unfinished?

  I remove all the dust, right to the corners, thinking perhaps I’ve missed something—an inlet, an island, maybe another piece of land—when my eyes catch on a tiny line of writing that stretches across the bottom right corner of the map. It’s cursive. Old English. Slightly water-smudged and loopy, hard to read, but I squint and manage it.

  The Village of Ramshackle Follies, the 17th of September, 1892.

  I pull back. Just six months after my father’s death.

  In the county of Kenton, in the borough of Fluxshire (formerly of the borough of Brethren)

  “Brethren?” I gasp. Ramshackle Follies was once a part of the Commonwealth? How is that possible? Hasn’t it always been just a discarded piece of contaminated land?

  Annexed in the year 1891.

  1891? The year prior to the flash. Why the need to annex just Ramshackle from the Commonwealth, I wonder? And why, then? Whose decision was that?

  My eyes drift over the boundaries, imagining them as seamless. Imagining all of us under one Commonwealth. All of us, equal. All people the same.

  I sigh and look again at the map, discovering something else at the end of the writing. A number, in even tinier script.

  4690073 HHB.

  It can’t be—my eyes shift from the map to the pedestal and back again.

  It is—the exact number that’s on the jar. I blink to make sure I’m seeing clearly. There’s no mistaking it. It’s the same.

  What is this? I run my finger over the hood of the glass again and the storm inside switches direction. And what does it have to do with an unfinished map?

  “That’s poisonous, you know.”

  I fly back at the sound of a voice in the room, nearly elbowing the jar from the mantelpiece. I throw a hand overtop to keep it from falling, and turn to find a girl, not more than a year or two older than me, draped over one of the ostrich’s necks. Her eyes look oddly familiar, grey as the stone on the Academy walls, back in Brethren. She smirks, as if she’s proud she’s startled me. “Good job, you caught that,” she says. “Don’t want something like that getting loose.”

  “Like what?” I say, assessing her from head to toe.

  “Bottled Vapours.” She steps briskly into the room. She’s dressed all in black, as though she were in mourning, yet she wears no veil. She has a harelip and mean eyes, and a dark brown oval-shaped mole, covered in thick brown hair that takes up most of her right cheek. A blood-red line extends from the bottom of the mole, like a tail, curling into a circle at the base of
her throat. I can’t help but think it looks like a small rat has taken to squatting on her face. She smiles again and its fat belly wrinkles. Her putty pink lip strains over snaggled teeth.

  “Or at least that’s what they say is inside,” she completes her sentence.

  “Who’re they?” I ask as she strips her hands of her gloves in one fluid motion.

  “Just people.” She hinges at the waist, and taps the glass. “I hear they sell them as novelty gifts at the gypsy freak shows on the outskirts of town. Makes one wonder, doesn’t it?” She turns to me, her eyes electric. “What sort of person bottles such a thing? Not to mention what sort of person purchases one for display in their home?” She grins again, and I’m fascinated by how her pink putty lip doesn’t split in two.

  “You’re sure that’s what’s inside there?” I say.

  Her gaze lopes over my features as if assessing me. She holds her tongue as if harboring some sort of secret. “What else would it be?” she finally says.

  Bottled Vapours, my bonnie arse.

  “You must be the cousin.” She extends a hand.

  Cousin?

  “Urlick sent word I’d be meeting you.”

  Word? How? I take her hand and it falls to mush like a cold serving of oatmeal in my palm. I shudder, smelling weakness and the lack of a warm heart.

  “Flossie,” she says. “I’m Urlick’s tutor.”

  Or course, the tutor. I’d almost forgotten. That explains the sudden intrusion and the lack of interference by Iris, the watchdog of the house.

  “It’s Priscilla, isn’t it?” she asks.

  “Priscilla?”

  “Or do you prefer, Prissy?” The word hisses through her snaggled teeth.

  This must be Urlick’s idea of preserving my identity. And a bad one at that. “Priscilla will be fine, thank you,” I narrow my eyes.

  “Prissy it is, then,” she smirks. She turns to walk away, then turns back. “You’re an awfully pretty thing.” She eyes me sternly. “Too pretty to be any cousin of Urlick’s.”

  I swallow.

  “Distant?” Her bushy brows beg the question.

  “Quite,” I answer, smiling.

  “I see…” she hesitates and cocks her head. “Well then...It’s been a pleasure, but I’m afraid I must go and prepare for the lesson.” She nods her head. “I’m sure our paths will cross again.”

  Not if I have any say.

  She turns, carelessly lassoing the jar with her sleeve. My hand snaps out and catches it before it crashes to the floor.

  “Oops.” She grins, bringing a hand to her mouth. “How careless of me.”

  I set the jar up straight on the mantel as I stare her down.

  What a diabolical pepsin salt she is.

  She turns, brittle shoes snapping over the hardwood, making her way across the room toward the kitchen, hesitating in the doorway. She leers at me from across the study. “Forgive me, where are my manners?” she starts. “We’ll be studying advanced mathematics today, the principles of quantum physics. You’re welcome to join us, if you like.” She pulls her gloves through her hands. “Unless of course...that’s beyond your capabilities.”

  “Thank you, but no.” I smile, biting my tongue for fear it will lash out and slap her upside the head. “I’ve already received an ‘A’ in that area of study. Wouldn’t want me showing Urlick up, now would we?”

  Flossie’s sassy expression sours.

  She whirls around and disappears into the belly of the kitchen as I fall against the mantelpiece, relieved—clumsily knocking the jar from its stand.

  The pedestal bounces, then snaps. Glass splinters everywhere. The hood of the dome falls away. The mysterious grey cloud within slowly seeps from the wreckage. I back up, coughing, and cover my mouth, worried Flossie is right and it is poisonous.

  I blink in disbelief as the cloud expands, then rises, steam-like, above the mantelpiece...filling in the unfinished portion of the map. I stand astounded, staring at the fog-like diorama forming before my very eyes. Three-dimensional plots of land float above the map, like a series of islands in the sky, hovering and bobbing, strung together by a series of tiny wooden bridges and rope. Below them a word slowly begins to appear, scrawled in the same loopy, Old English cursive as the rest of the map…

  Limpidious

  Followed by the word…

  Groves

  “It can’t be.” I gasp, bringing a quick hand to my mouth. “Limpidious! My father’s utopian world! It does exist!”

  Seventeen

  Eyelet

  “Is everything all right in there?” Flossie’s voice bounces off the kitchen cupboards. My heart rolls in my chest.

  I burst into action, waving my hands through the steamy cloud to erase its details. I lunge at the floor to scoop up the glass, deposit the shards in a nearby potted plant, and kick the remains of the pedestal under the settee just as Flossie’s face graces the doorway, her brows tight in a weave.

  “Is everything all right in here?” She glares at me, her eyes two grey pebbles peering out from under a thunderstorm of suspicion.

  It’s only then I realize I’ve cut myself. Quickly, I throw my hands behind my back, pinching the cut with my other hand to stop the bleeding.

  “I thought I heard something,” she goes on. “Like a crash.”

  Her eyes scan the room and I doctor my position. Stepping to one side just enough to block the empty space on the mantelpiece, I bend my arm and lean my head into my hand playfully to further hide it. “It was nothing, really,” I stammer. “I just tripped over this.” I kick the cast-iron fireplace ornament standing next to me. The poker falls from the stand. “You see.” I bite my lip.

  “Really?” She breathes, bringing a hand to her chest, her eyes narrowing to slits. “I could have sworn I heard something shatter.”

  “Really?” I say, blood dripping through my fingertips.

  “Eyelet!” Urlick’s voice bursts into the room, causing us both to jump. “Eyelet! Are you there?!” He appears in the doorway short of breath, cobwebs in his hair, his expression—formidably priceless.

  “Eyelet?” Flossie whirls around. “I thought you said your cousin’s name was Priscilla.”

  Urlick pulls a hand through his sweaty curls. “It—it is!” He swallows.

  Flossie’s eyes land hot on me.

  The pulse triples in my wrists.

  “It’s a family thing.” I step forward bravely, looping my good hand through Urlick’s arm. “Eyelet is my—pet name,” I say, thinking quickly. “It’s silly really,” I chortle. “But it seems my father thought me as pretty as the trim that edged my dress on the day of my christening. And so I was renamed...and it’s stuck ever since.”

  Flossie twists her hands.

  “Isn’t that right, Urlick?” I turn to him and swallow.

  “Right,” he nods, patting my hand.

  “Now that I’ve grown up, I’ve asked everyone to address me by my proper name, but from time to time, Urlick slips. We spent a lot of time together as children. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

  Flossie’s expression stiffens. “I had no idea you were that close, Urlick.” Her head cranks around, catching Urlick up in a venomous stare. “You’ve never mentioned having a cousin before. Especially not one you address by a pet name.” She turns her eyes on me. “I would have thought I’d have heard of her at some point over the past two years.” She floats forward, touching Urlick’s other arm, running her fingers lightly down his sleeve. “Considering how close we’ve been.”

  Urlick flinches under the weight of her touch, bolting backward as if he’s been scorched by fire. His eyes are as wide as a cornered raccoon’s. I can’t help but laugh inside.

  She folds her hand over his and the hairs on the back of my neck sizzle. Though I’m not sure why. I could care less that she’s touched him.

  She gazes into Urlick’s eyes, hers dancing scantily beneath painted lashes. Running her fingers in provocative lines across her chest, she gla
nces at me to see if I’ve noticed.

  I noticed.

  Not that I care.

  I don’t.

  Do I?

  “Well, shall we get started then?” Flossie tips her chin toward Urlick. “I see Iris has lunch prepared.” She raises a hand to primp her hair, staring me down out of the corner of her eye. “After all, we’ve only so much time together.” She tightens her grip on his hand.

  “Are you coming?” Urlick says, looking back over his shoulder as Flossie drags him through the archway into the kitchen.

  “I’m not really hungry,” I lie, trying to steal some time to figure out what to do about my finger, shifting my boot over the puddle on the carpet.

  Looking past Urlick, my eyes fix on a stranger, standing with his back to the wall on the opposite side of the kitchen. He’s smoking a cigarette, and his left eye is covered in a leather patch, just like the one the Brigsmen—

  I gasp.

  Flossie’s eyes track my gaze. “Forgive me—again with my manners. I’ve forgotten to introduce my new driver, haven’t I? Cryderman…” She turns, unfurling a hand in his direction. The stranger lifts his gaze.

  It’s him. Smrt’s henchman. The one who chased me from my mother’s side the day she lay dying in the street. What is he doing here? I avert my eyes, trembling. I’ve got to get out of here. If I stay, he’ll surely recognize me. “No introduction necessary,” I blurt. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  I push past Flossie and dash up the stairs to my room. “Enjoy your studies,” I call to Urlick over my shoulder.

  “What was that all about?” I hear Urlick say.

  “I’ve no idea.” Flossie’s says. “Flighty little thing, your cousin.”

  Eighteen

  Eyelet

  I bury my head in my pillow, terrified by the idea of my captor’s henchman lunching downstairs with Urlick at the kitchen table.

  What if he has come for me? What if he tells Urlick? What if Urlick agrees to hand me over to him? He wouldn’t do that, would he?