The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom

by Leah Cutter

  Only after Kostya had reached his hidden boat did he realize his mistake.

  The fairies now had his jabber. They’d learn about the human Tinker. It was their machine, after all—they’d left it out as a test. He’d just adapted it for his own purposes.

  Instead of heading further north, to his second set of tunnels, Kostya turned the boat back south.

  The human Tinker had to die.

  ***

  Robert sat in his car outside the off-track betting house and considered calling Denise back. That first “hello” had been flat, not soft, and the second time he’d called her she’d had too much tension in her voice. Was this the right Denise, though? The one Robert’s client had hired him to find?

  The only way Robert would know for certain was by seeing her. He sighed, looking again at the betting house. It was a plain house, built in the 1930s and painted a faded green. Sandwiched in between two shops, it was easy to miss. It advertised itself as a “gentleman’s club.” Ladies waited for men to buy them drinks and converse in the front room. In the back, the formal dining room and kitchen had been converted into a gambling den, with TVs hung on the walls like paintings. The bookie sat in a converted closet under the stairs. Robert had heard rumors of high-stakes poker games on the second floor.

  Robert sighed again. He couldn’t go in, not now. He had work to do. So he drove back to the ratty motel he currently called home, with the thin towels, thinner walls, and shower that just spit at him, and extended his stay instead of checking out. He could have gone to a nicer place—his winnings from the day before had been enough. However, when he finished this job he’d have more, a lot more. Robert promised himself that this time, he’d save some of it. Use it to get himself more legitimate work, bigger clients, and a nicer office, maybe one with a window.

  First, Robert located the house Denise had rented, viewing it using the Internet. Without driving out there, he quickly learned that the usual techniques he used for photographing suspects weren’t going to work. The house sat higher than the surrounding land, with clear views on all sides. Robert didn’t see anyplace he could set up a nest and take photos, not without Denise getting suspicious.

  So Robert haunted grocery stores, his camera pen poking him in the ribcage every time he bent over. Woman had to eat, right? While he was looking around, he learned that more than one of the shops offered home delivery. He stomped out of the store, growling at the amount of money he’d wasted while “shopping.”

  The next route Robert considered was the kids. Unfortunately, single men sitting in ramshackle cars, taking pictures of high school students, tended to get questioned by the police. Robert needed to avoid all law enforcement, at least for a while, until he got some money and could pay off his debt. While driving by the school to see if there was a place where he could set up shop without drawing any attention, he noticed one important thing: school buses.

  The kids would have to wait somewhere for the bus, right? Probably close to their home.

  It didn’t take Robert long to find out when the school bus stopped on Spring Road—the winter cancellation notifications listed all the start times. Then it was just a matter of driving the route, estimating the number of kids and pickup times. Robert had always been good with numbers, though they hadn’t always been good to him. He’d make it all up on this job, though.

  Once Robert had come up with his plan, he thought about calling his client. In the end, he decided not to. His client had some anger issues, enough to almost make Robert turn down the job. However, he had checked before taking it, as his client had suggested. Denise had never filed for a divorce or even sought a restraining order. She’d just taken the kids and run, which made her a kidnapper and a homewrecker. His client had reassured him that he just wanted to get his family back together. Robert was doing the right thing by reuniting this man and his children.

  Robert spent the afternoon wiring a tiny camera to the passenger-side door handle of his car. He took pride in covering the wires, hiding them as they ran from the door to the steering column. He tested it a couple of times, making sure that with the push of a button he could get a series of shots.

  At 2 A.M., Robert timed his drive, going along the route twice. He took into account as many variables as he could. It was easier to add time, go around an additional block or two, than to make up time if the bus was early or fast.

  After a precise 248-minute nap, a lucky number if there ever was one, Robert awoke, shaved, showered, and then hit the road. His luck held that morning—just as he turned down the main highway, the bus came up behind him. It slowed a couple of times, making stops right where Robert thought it would. He turned down Spring Road just as it had started up again.

  Robert passed the intersection of Spring and Fowler at 7:57 A.M. The button camera worked perfectly. He got multiple shots of the three people standing at the bus stop: a young woman with dark hair and a fine, upturned nose, pale in the morning light with a sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks; a young boy, tow-headed, with blue eyes that matched the sky; and a young girl, as dark as her mother, but brighter, more joyous.

  After turning down the main highway, Robert pulled to the side to let the bus pass him. He was tempted to keep going, to use this string of luck and go straight to the betting parlor. However, he prided himself on being a professional, so he called his client using the pre-paid cell phone his client had provided for him, for this one task.

  “I found them.”

  ***

  Dale had put away the machinery in the morning, carefully loading all the screws and parts he’d removed from the primary piece into empty yogurt containers. He missed the glass jars he’d had at their old place—he’d attached the tops of the jars into the bottom of a shelf, then screwed the jars back into the tops. That way he could see what was in a jar without having to open it, and all the small nuts, screws, wire, and bolts were easily accessible. The yogurt containers were cheap but they weren’t as convenient.

  That morning, it didn’t matter to Dale that he rode the bus alone, with only his sister, and that no one said hello to Dale in the hallway before homeroom. Instead, he thought about the machine. Why had it started to glow? What about it was phosphorus? There must be a compartment for storing the energy...

  “Dale!”

  Dale looked up. His cheeks grew warm. Mr. Henderson had just called his name—twice—for attendance. “Here,” he said sheepishly.

  “Already on summer break?” his homeroom teacher asked, teasing gently.

  Dale just shrugged. It had been hard coming into this school so late in the year, with barely a trimester left. He’d wished his mom had agreed to homeschool them; he could have gotten so much more done. However, she had to work as well.

  The plastic seats made Dale’s thighs sweat. He tried to pay attention to the announcements: the finals schedule, parent-teacher conferences, summer school, as well as the big school picnic. However, he kept squirming, as well as tracing gear paths in his head. Mr. Henderson had to call him to order a second time.

  Dale wasn’t sure how he made it through all his classes without someone threatening detention. Luckily, the teachers cut all the kids slack because summer break started next week. Because of winter weather and school cancellations, they only had two more days of school the following week.

  Finally, last period arrived, along with Dale’s favorite class, shop. The familiar scents of grease, solder, and fresh-cut wood greeted him as he walked in. Benches lined the room. Ms. Anderson, the shop teacher, had already tied on her heavy-duty khaki apron. Her gray curls peeked out from under the leather helmet-like hat she wore, and large safety goggles perched on her forehead. She instructed two girls on the bandsaw, drilling them on its use, making sure they knew how to use it before she turned it on.

  Rich and Tabri nodded at Dale, and Rich indicated an open space on the bench to his left. Dale had helped both of them on their projects—a music box and a plant holder with an electronic moisture m
eter. They’d shared shop only that trimester, but they’d talked about trying to take history together the next year. They weren’t friends, not yet; Dale couldn’t call them and they didn’t eat lunch together. Maybe next year, though.

  Dale retrieved his project from his locker. He told everyone it was a pirate chest. It looked like one: leather straps decorated the sides and top, held down with brass rivets, and iron reinforced the corners. With the clever use of pegs, Dale hung the smaller boxes he’d made on the inside. He’d even put in a false bottom—barely an inch above the real bottom, but good for hiding treasure maps.

  In reality, it was a toolbox. Dale had made leather loops along the back to hold screwdrivers of all sizes, as well as scissors and wrenches.

  More than anything, Dale wanted to fill his toolbox with tools. He imagined it in his room, and knew it would look pathetic with the one set of tools in it. He missed his old workshop again, missed the orderly jars holding everything he could ever need for a project, missed the directed lights, missed the vises and tools.

  “Looking good,” Rich told Dale in his best sleazy pickup voice.

  Dale grinned. “You too, man.” He looked over at Rich’s project. Rich only needed to finish tacking the material to the inside of the cover. Tabri nodded at Dale, then turned back to smoothing out the hole for the digital readout for his moisture meter. Dale only had a few finishing touches as well, polishing the rivets and iron. Ms. Anderson had already given him an A on it.

  The hour passed quickly. Dale kept thinking about tools, how they’d look inside his box. Finally he gathered up a few from around the shop class and tried them out, seeing how they’d fit. The box worked just as Dale had imagined it would, and the tools filled the box perfectly.

  Dale glanced around. Ms. Anderson stood at the far side with her back to him, working with two other students. Rich and Tabri argued over the stupid call the ref had made at the last baseball game, whether Barkman had been in or out.

  It was just wrong for a toolbox not to have any tools in it. It was also wrong to steal.

  Dale tried to justify it to himself. No one would miss the tools until fall—the school shop was closed for the summer. And maybe by then he’d have his own set and could replace the ones he’d taken. No one needed to know.

  As casually as he could, Dale took out most of the tools he’d placed in the box. He left behind one package of tools in the bottom-most boxes—a complete set of tiny screwdrivers and wrenches, the kind he needed to work on the new machinery at home, the type that would be the most difficult buy at a hardware store.

  Dale closed the top of his box and put away all the tools he’d taken out. No one seemed to have noticed. The back of his neck prickled with anticipation. Those tools would be so useful. Maybe he could sneak back in some of the wire-working pliers. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Ms. Anderson said, directly over his shoulder, “Fine-looking toolbox you have there.”

  Ms. Anderson wore her safety goggles, making her eyes look huge and watery. She pushed them up to her forehead with one gloved hand. “Why don’t you show me?”

  Reluctantly, Dale lifted the lid. The tools glared at him from the bottom of the box.

  Ms. Anderson looked at the tools, then at Dale, and said, “Think I’ll have to make a box like that for my tools, someday. Though I might start with a tackle box. Let me show you what I mean.”

  Dale trailed behind his teacher, his gut sinking and churning, his cheeks flaming hot. Though she hadn’t said anything, he knew that she knew. And he couldn’t go through with it. When he got back to his workbench, he pulled out the set of screwdrivers and wrenches and put them away. He felt Ms. Anderson’s eyes on him the whole time, even though she was working with Tabri’s plant holder. Now how was Dale going to fix the machinery he had at home? The tools he had weren’t adequate. It wasn’t fair.

  As Dale left, carrying his now completely empty box, Ms. Anderson pressed a small set of jeweler’s screwdrivers into his hand. She shrugged when he looked up at her. “Found an extra set. You know, you can always find good used tools on eBay or something.”

  Dale nodded, only barely remembering to say, “Thanks.” But first he needed the money to buy them, money his mom wouldn’t give him. There weren’t any jobs he could get, either. He placed the lone set of tools in his toolbox. They looked as forlorn as he felt.

  ***

  Adele looked in the mirror. She’d thrown off her mourning frocks, much to the dismay of her maid, Clarissa, and had dressed that morning as a warrior instead. The red cloak set off her pale skin. Adele painted her lips the same red color, then growled into the mirror, pleased with how sharp her pointed teeth looked. She used dark kohl around her golden eyes to make them seem bigger, and then painted stripes and protective symbols on her cheeks, across her bare chest.

  Today, Kostya would die. Adele would kill him with her own hands, in revenge for Thaddeus’ death. She growled again in the mirror. The white oak dressing table and four-poster bed behind her looked incongruous, too civilized. Adele stretched her wings, this time more easily. Cornelius had done maintenance on them the night before. The faint odor of oil still hung in the air. The wing membrane bore ragged ends that showed her old injury. They’d never fully healed. Gears and bone made up the top ridge, allowing Adele to open and close her wings. Most of the metacarpals were still bone, but two were made from gold.

  Before Adele finished applying her war paint, Cornelius and two other members of the court, Gideon and Imogene, filed into the room. They must have bribed Clarissa. She’d have to find out what they’d paid and double it to ensure her privacy from now on.

  “You’re not talking me out of going,” Adele warned them.

  “Going? No. Leading?” Cornelius asked, and then shook his gray head.

  “Kostya must die,” Adele said, keeping her voice low and mean.

  “Yes, he must, and by your hand, too,” Cornelius replied.

  “But?” Adele couldn’t keep herself from asking.

  “The dwarf has no honor,” Gideon said, sniffing. “There will be traps. Explosions.”

  “Some of the warriors may die. You cannot,” Cornelius continued.

  “Who will lead us if you’re gone?” Imogene asked, sounding whiny to Adele.

  “Whoever rises to the top,” Adele retorted. She and Thaddeus had never been able to have children, a common problem when fairies from different castes mated. “The rule will pass to whichever royal is strong enough to take it, same as it has always been,” she continued. “As the court and the priests have decreed.”

  Adele watched Imogene and Gideon exchange a look in the mirror. She didn’t know what those two were plotting, but she was going to have to be careful. One of them might decide it was no longer her time to rule. Thaddeus had been her connection to royalty, and now he was dead. Some of the court thought that Adele, being from the warrior caste, wasn’t capable of leading them on her own. She would show them wrong. Not only would she make them stronger, she’d help them regain their former glory.

  “Let your warriors see you at your fiercest, to inspire them,” Cornelius proposed. “However, you must direct the party from behind and let them take the brunt of the dwarf’s machinations.”

  Thaddeus had pointed out to Adele, more than once, that as Queen she had different responsibilities than before, when she’d merely been the leader of their ragtag army, marching across the untamed wilderness of the new continent. Adele had to compromise as well as lead, listen to her advisors and take their advice when it was sound.

  “He still dies by my hand,” Adele said, nodding to the inevitable. Her people had grown used to this softer life and a continuous rule. She would make concessions.

  Imogene made a face as if she smelled something bad. “Your presence will just make them foolhardy, not courageous.”

  “Some people easily confuse the two,” Adele told her, giving her a polite smile but still showing her pointed teeth. Imogene and her husband Gideon woul
d have their Queen be a spectator only, mistakenly thinking that ordering people to do things gave you more power, instead of doing everything yourself.

  Adele would prove them wrong.

  ***

  When the first explosion rocked the tunnel where Adele waited, Cornelius murmured to her, “See? Aren’t you glad you stayed back?”

  “Yes, all right, you were right,” Adele said crossly. She was glad that she’d defiantly stayed dressed as a warrior, ignoring the rest of her court still in their mourning frocks. Dirt sifted down on them and she shook her head. The dwarf’s tunnels were inferior to theirs, crudely carved and shored up with mere lumber. Compacted dirt made up the floor, not matched stones, and the rough walls weren’t straight enough for any god to follow.

  A runner came back to the court, his wings singed and his cape blackened. “Bascom set off the bomb without injury, Ma’am. We’re approaching the second cavern now.” Then he flew back. Adele glared at Cornelius, Imogene and the others. It would have been fine if she’d been there.

  After a fourth explosion, the runner came back for Adele. “We’ve reached the inner tunnels. The dwarf is gone.”

  Adele gnashed her teeth and didn’t contain her growl. It figured. Nothing had gone right since Thaddeus died.

  “Bascom did find something interesting, my Lady,” he said, looking down.

  Grimly, Adele strode forward. What perversion had the warriors found? They should have taken care of the dwarf long ago. She wrapped the ends of her cloak over her arm as they entered to keep it from catching on the rubbish that littered the floor. Even humans lived more cleanly than this dwarf. Imogene gagged behind her. Adele refused to be quelled by the stench. Instead, she gritted her teeth and pushed into the next room, past the rubble from the first explosions.