Cogling

by Jordan Elizabeth

  From nearby, Edna gasped. Ike’s mother chortled louder.

  Blood spurted from Mother Sambucus’s skin to drip down her dress. She gurgled and pulled at the gold handle, but the magic trapped it in place. The hags and ogres paused to stare at her twitching death throes. Her arms writhed, her back arching as much as it could.

  Ike lifted his sword and aimed it at her face as he crossed in five strides, blood splashing. The room settled into a thick quiet, the only sounds his heels upon the tiles and her gurgles. Her bulging eyes pleaded with him, but her sagging mouth couldn’t form words. He sheathed his sword and rested his hand over the hilt of the dagger. Her legs trembled.

  Ike ripped the front of her dress with his free hand. A brass pocket watch with a sun design hung against her silk chemise. He yanked it hard enough to break the chain, and the Dark Mother’s neck snapped. Her skull rocked backward, her eyes rolling into her head, before her head tipped to the side and her lips stopped twitching.

  Edna clenched her hand into a fist. “Chains aren’t that strong.”

  “She had it coated in magic. I added a little of mine to make it stronger.”

  Ike removed lock picks from his pocket and poked at the watch. Everyone stood still in the throne room. The back of the watch popped open and he worked the inner gears free.

  The workings snapped and cogs plinked to the floor. He threw the broken watch at the wall and turned to face his enemies. His sword whistled as he drew it.

  “That watch controlled the coglings,” he said. “They’ll crumble, but I wonder which of you will follow the Dark Mother into death.”

  A buzz sounded through the crowd outside the palace. Harrison cringed, slapping his hands over his ears to dull it.

  The coglings shook. Hands fell off, gears grinding. Glass eyes popped out. The humans huddled together, but a few of the braver folks shoved at the coglings. They wrestled the weapons free and chopped at the machines.

  “What’s happenin’ here?” Harrison asked Rachel.

  She shook her head. “They’re just falling apart.”

  “You reckon Ike and Edna won?” Harrison reached for her hand, and she squeezed it.

  “Only the Saints know.” She glanced at the castle, where flames appeared in most of the windows and burst through the shingled roof. The heat bit at the crowd, forcing the onlookers back.

  Harrison leaned against Rachel, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to hold him tighter.

  Trust me, you haven’t seen wicked yet.

  dna’s stomach churned as Ike struck down the last ogre. Blood washed across the floor, soaking between the tiles. Edna looked away from his stained clothes; the stench of death threatened to choke her. Ike’s mother continued to rock and laugh, whispering, “Burn forever.”

  Ike wiped his blade on an ogre’s shirt. “You can stop.”

  Edna assumed he spoke to his mother until he looked at her. “Pardon?” She blushed.

  “Stop rubbing,” he said. “Eddie, it’s over.”

  She jerked her hand away from the cameo. The brooch had exfoliated a section of her finger, leaving it raw and bloodied, yet her hand felt numb.

  He sheathed his sword. “I don’t know how to heal them.”

  She wrinkled her nose at the gory corpses on the floor. He couldn’t mean the hags and ogres. “I thought you wanted to have ‘em dead.”

  “Not them.” He pointed at the cages of noblemen. “I don’t know what spell was used.”

  The thuds and whooshes of the castle crumbling echoed into the throne room. Edna shivered. Although flames leapt at the doorway, the heat didn’t enter. “Thanks to the cameo, we’re safe for now.”

  Ike crossed the room, stepping over bodies and splashing through puddles of blood, to reach the wall where a pulley system had been constructed. He fiddled with the contraption until a puff of steam hissed free before gears clanked together. The cages lowered to the floor, where they thumped and squished. One landed on a dead hag.

  “Let me help.” Edna ran to Ike as he fiddled with the lock on the nearest cage.

  “You can pick locks?” He didn’t look at her.

  She loathed the chill in his voice. “I can try to get the cameo to do it.”

  “Break them,” his mother sang.

  Ike stiffened. “Mum, you…” His voice broke and he returned to his work, shaking his head.

  The hag frowned. She opened and shut her mouth as though struggling to find the words. When she spoke again, she did it slowly, precisely. “I cease spell.”

  “Can you tell me how?” Edna knelt beside the woman. Ike stiffened without looking, as though he couldn’t bear to see her lucid and then crumble again.

  His mother grimaced. “Show.”

  Edna’s heart raced and fatigue clouded her mind. Rubbing the cameo had drained her energy. Dizziness clung to her senses. She snapped the wristband of her glove to keep alert.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Ike said.

  “Will she be all right?” Edna brushed the woman’s hair away from her smooth face.

  Ike wiped his hand across his mouth. “Hags mutilated her brain. We have to heal it.”

  Edna shuddered. “I can’t imagine the pain she’s endured. I wish there was something…”

  “You’re not a hag. You can’t help, and the cameo can’t do it either.” Ike returned to the cage’s lock.

  She cringed at his harshness. The murder around them must have clouded his senses.

  “Are you sad they’re dead?” Edna walked to him, although he didn’t turn around.

  “No.” He finished picking the lock and moved on to the next cage.

  Edna rested her hand on his shoulder. “Are you sorry you had to be the one to kill them?”

  He clenched his teeth. “I’m bloody glad it was me. It was up to my kind to finish them off, not the humans. My father taught me to keep battles close to home, and that’s what I did. I kept it personal.”

  “You never killed before.”

  A hand grabbed her arm and Edna twisted to see Ike’s mother. She ripped the cameo from Edna’s throat. Edna clamped her hand to her torn collar.

  “I show.” His mother waved the cameo. Her fist held it so tightly that rivulets of blood slithered down her ashen arm as the jewelry’s edges cut her skin. She chanted under her breath, the words heightening.

  The wildness in the hag’s face froze Edna in place. Ike slid his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him. She couldn’t imagine what he felt about his mother. The strong woman he’d loved and mourned, acting as senseless as a child, but still with a pure heart.

  He must have desired to protect her too, as she hurt herself on the cameo. They watched as an unruliness possessed her face, her mouth agape and her glazed eyes wide.

  Hope swelled in Edna’s chest. Maybe the King would be saved after all. Maybe they could all be saved.

  Ike’s mother screamed. A green glow shot out from the cameo to burst against the walls, sparks sizzling over the bodies. The nobles in their cages jerked, moaning.

  Edna gasped. “Odds bobs, she did it!”

  King Elias blinked and moaned, rubbing his forehead. “What happened?” He licked his lips, staggering, so Harrison took his hand. The crowd turned to face them.

  “Where is Mother Sambucus?” King Elias asked.

  “Dead by now.” Rachel curtised. “Allow me to explain what the hags have done, Your Majesty, and how your son came to warn you.”

  The king rubbed his mouth. “Isaac shouldn’t have returned.” His lips twisted in a frown.

  “May the Saints save us,” a newly-freed servant exclaimed. “The palace is on fire!”

  Rachel winced. “I’ll explain that too.”

  Hilda kept watch at the palace gates to make certain hag survivors didn’t escape. When night fell, King Elias approached her. The crowd parted to allow him space to move, and he nodded without smiling.

  “Majesty.” Hilda bobbed her head. She kn
ew she should curtsy, but her legs ached and nausea bit at her belly. She’d already helped save him. That should count for enough respect.

  “Open the gates. The hags are gone.”

  “We must make certain.” Hilda straightened the high collar of her blouse.

  “Many of my servants live in the city. I would allow them to go home.”

  “Ike and Edna aren’t out yet.”

  “My palace is gone. The hags wouldn’t have survived. We’ll open the path and keep watching for Isaac… and Edna.”

  “As you wish, Majesty.” Let the consequences fall on him. She’d done her part. He could look after his own subjects.

  As soon as the gates opened, many servants retreated to their homes in the city. Others who’d kept apartments in the palace stayed to watch it burn. Families from the city brought buckets of water to pass through the parched crowd.

  “We could do a fire brigade,” a cook suggested.

  “It’s gone too far,” King Elias said.

  Flames danced against the dark sky; soot smothered the moon and stars to block their light. Soon the palace would be nothing but ash.

  Shapes emerged from the smoke. Three people picked their way through the rubble: a hag, a young man, and a short young woman with kinky curls.

  Hilda’s eyes widened. “Is that them?”

  “Eddie!” Harrison raced toward his sister and bounded into her arms.

  She held him close, kissing his face. “Harry-boy.” Her lips left soot marks on his cheeks and forehead.

  “Father.” Ike hooked his thumbs into his belt.

  The king rose from a stone bench. “Son?”

  Ike ran to King Elias, pulling his mother with him. She stumbled, swinging her free hand.

  “Elias?” The hag traced the King’s face with her fingertips as a blind person would. “Elias?”

  “Victoria!” The King held her face in his hands. “Ah, Victoria, my love.”

  Ike’s mother stared at the clouds and laughed, but quieted when King Elias kissed her. Her arms remained at her sides, but she leaned into his chest, sighing. Rachel wove through the crowd toward Edna and Harrison, while the newly-freed nobles stumbled from the ruined palace behind them.

  “Is it over?” Rachel asked.

  Edna rubbed tears off her cheeks. “Finally.”

  I look in your eyes and see all of your secrets.

  dna kissed her prayer beads before stepping through the sheer white curtain. It parted and swished behind her as if she floated through clouds. She might have been in the sky, for all the gold and candles that illuminated the ballroom of Reynolds Castle, the King’s summer home.

  Men in suits and women in gowns of silk and lace spun across the marble floor, polished to shine and reflect. Violin music reverberated off the walls.

  Edna closed her eyes as she swayed to the soothing rhythym.

  “Edna?”

  She turned, gulping, to find Ike behind her. He’d cut his black hair close to his head; it made the angles of his face stronger, his pale eyes brighter. Ike held out one hand as he bowed.

  “Hi.” She coughed when her voice squeaked.

  “Overwhelming, isn’t it?” He caught her hand and lifted it to kiss her knuckles, his breath warm even through her indigo satin gloves.

  “You grew up in all this.” She chuckled, but her voice was still hoarse. The scent of jasmine clung to her as if ready to strangle, other perfumes mixing with the incense to make her head spin.

  Ike wiggled his eyebrows. “Sweet Edna, do you really think a bloke like me could enjoy this?”

  He rested his other hand on her waist to spin her out into the crowd. The orchestra started up a new dance, one more lively. She tipped her head to spot someone she recognized—there, Rachel stood beside Ike’s mother. The hag wore her white bridal gown, her face hidden by a veil that brushed the floor.

  Rachel flicked her fan toward a group of gentleman and laughed.

  “Leave it to Rachel to shirk her duties,” Ike muttered. “Isn’t she supposed to be entertaining my mother?”

  “I can go do that.” It sounded safer than stumbling over unfamiliar dance moves, but when Edna started to pull away, Ike pulled her closer, his lips touching her forehead.

  “Stay with me, Edna. You make the dance pleasant.”

  She pressed her face into the shoulder of his jacket to hide her flushing cheeks. “Th-thank you.” Would his comments and touches ever leave her normal, rather than with a racing pulse and roaring in her ears?

  “There’s Harrison,” Ike murmured against her curls, the brown tresses pinned atop her head.

  “Where?” She turned against him, his hand still on the small of her back. Her brother stood near a group of other boys drinking punch at the refreshment table. “I’m so glad he’s going to attend a private school. He’s already made friends with those boys.” Harrison would live with the sons of lords, rather than peel potatoes in a damp cellar.

  “I thought I saw your parents earlier at the wedding ceremony.”

  “They sat in the back.” She’d had to stand in the front beside Ike’s mother, with her head down and her cheeks aflame. Although no one had spoken to her, she’d felt at the center of attention.

  Edna Mather, the girl who burned down the cogling factory and reunited the King with his lost love.

  A horn trumpeted and the orchestra stilled their notes. Ike cupped Edna’s chin to draw her up to his mouth, his lips closing over hers. She clutched his velvet lapels to keep her legs straight. With his other hand, he massaged the back of her neck.

  Through the haze forming in her mind came the King’s voice: “A toast to my beautiful bride! Where are her new maids-in-waiting?”

  Ike pulled away enough to kiss the corner of Edna’s smile. “That’s you.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Edna, where are you in this huddle?” Laughter tinged the King’s voice.

  Ike pivoted her on the heels of her slippers to face the front dias. “That’s you, luv. Go claim your prize.”

  Did she have a prize coming? Edna stumbled over the hem of her gown, but Ike caught her arm before she could fall. May the seven Saints keep her safe. The crowd parted for her, a hush on the instruments, as she walked on stiff legs toward where the King waited with his new wife and Rachel, the other maid-of-honor, still fluttering her fan and smirking.

  Ike and Harrison waited for her in the crowd.

  She didn’t need more of a prize than that.

  COGLING was born from two sources: the Victorian Fair and Aaron Siddall. Working at the Victorian Fair in Rome, New York introduced me to steampunk, a genre I fell in love with; Aaron Siddall is a professional illustrator who is also a member of the Utica Writers Club. He approached me with the idea to collaborate on a book. I would write it and he would illustrate it. He wanted a fairy tale; I wanted a steampunk story.

  With the clinking of some gears, COGLING came about. Sadly, it didn’t work out with Aaron and I regret that.

  This story wouldn’t be as powerful as it is without the Utica Writers Club. You got to hear the earliest draft and now you get to read the final product. Maybe I’ll even read some sections at our next meeting!

  The same goes for my critique partners. All of you – if I listed every name the acknowledgements would go on for at least five pages – helped to shape this into a story worth enjoying. “I love Ike” became a common theme amongst our in-depth discussions.

  Thank you, Jessa Russo, for being the type of Editor I always dreamed I would have (yes, you deserve to have your title capitalized). You point out all the places that can make it stronger; the romance between Ike and Edna wouldn’t be as steamy without you.

  I wouldn’t be a published author without my family. My maternal grandmother spoiled me with books, my mother read aloud to me every night (and most nights still!), and everyone learned to be quiet while Jordan was reading or writing. Any writing event I wanted to attend, my family made sure it was possible for me to do so.
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  Speaking of family, I must give a shout out to my great-grandmother, Edna Hammer Clark. “Ma Edna” loaned her name to Edna Mather, who I believe wears it with honor.

  COGLING is the first novel I signed with Belcastro Agency. Thank you for taking a chance on me. I’m thrilled to have it in print now.

  It wouldn’t be in print if it weren’t for those who work at Curiosity Quills. From the first stage to the last, you guys helped it shine.

  None of my books would exist without the readers, you loyal people who enjoy young adult, fantasy, steampunk, adventure, and the time spent curled up with a book. I’ve always loved that saying: “curled up with a book.” I do literally curl up, as if that will help to suck me into the pages. That’s the best way to read for me.

  Odds bobs – enjoy your reading!

  Jordan Elizabeth, formally Jordan Elizabeth Mierek, enjoys wearing corsets, long skirts, and boots – sometimes all at once. She writes and works in Central New York, but she lives in her imagination.

  Jordan is the author of ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW, TREASURE DARKLY, BORN OF TREASURE, and RUNNERS AND RIDERS, all available from Curiosity Quills Press. She is a contributing author for GEARS OF BRASS, the steampunk anthology.

  Visit Jordan website, JORDANELIZABETHMIEREK.COM, for contests and more information about her upcoming novels.

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  Escape from Witchwood Hollow, by Jordan Elizabeth

  (http://bit.ly/1JPlc4q)

  Everyone in Arnn―a small farming town with more legends than residents―knows the story of Witchwood Hollow: if you venture into the whispering forest, the witch will trap your soul among the trees. After losing her parents in a horrific terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, fifteen-year-old Honoria and her younger brother escape New York City to Arnn.