“Could you photocopy this for me?”
Truth wrinkled her nose, disgusted. “Most certainly not, that would bend the spine. Philistine. Come with me.”
I followed her downstairs. She laid the book out flat on the counter, then placed a piece of plain paper over the image and spread her hand on the back of it.
“Effingo!” There was a brief flash of light. She peeled back the paper to show the image was burnt onto the other side.
“How was that different from a photocopier?” I asked. She closed the book and stroked the undamaged spine as her answer.
Chapter Eleven
I folded the copy into my pocket and left Truth to lock up only after her insistence that she would be fine. Her shop was only accessible by a pedestrian alley in the middle of town, so I’d walked; I wasn’t afraid to walk through the city at night. I was more than capable of taking care of myself.
I stopped at a darkened shop on the high street to use the window, with a street light behind me, like a mirror, checking that my clothes were straight and that the light breeze hadn’t blown my hair all out of shape. I caught a flicker of movement and turned my head slightly. There was a figure two shops down, on the other side of the street, hiding in one of the recessed doorways. All I could tell about the figure was that it was draped in a long dark cloak of some kind, and was trying to keep out of sight.
I continued on as if I hadn’t seen the mysterious figure behind me, using glances I caught in the windows of the other shops to see what the stalker would do. The figure crept out from its hiding place and followed along the street behind me, still on the opposite side, ducking from cover to cover. I wanted to laugh. Had the stalker seen one too many spy movies? I wouldn’t have noticed him—or her–if it hadn’t been for the jerky movements. The late hour and the lack of anyone else around didn’t help either.
I didn’t really want to lead this person home with me. I stopped walking; the stalker dove behind a tree. I made a show of taking out my phone so that I could look at the time while I thought about my route home. There was a place a block past my apartment where the road twisted and there was an alley that you couldn’t see until you passed it–unless of course you knew it was there. I sped my pace as though I was late, and charged on past my apartment building.
I checked the reflection in the side mirror of a parked car; my follower was still there, on my side of the street now. The stalker wasn’t very tall, so I had that advantage, but I didn’t think it safe to just turn around and confront him. I had to be sneaky.
On the corner, as I turned into the winding street, was a house that was undergoing renovations for months. I snagged a stray piece of clay piping and quickened my step again, darting into the alley. I pressed my back tight against the wall and waited.
The figure slowly came into the alley and crept past, looking around. I brought the pipe up, holding my breath, and swung hard. The pipe smashed and my follower went down. I was unprepared for the cracking sound; the hood fell back to reveal that I had knocked her head to a sickening angle.
Her head. My follower was a woman. I dropped the rest of the pipe, covering my mouth. I hadn’t meant to kill her! I had only intended to subdue her. Blonde ringlets fell around her face, obscuring it; I expected them to be matted with blood from the blow, but they were clean. I bent down and reached under the cloak for her wrist: no pulse. My eyes prickled with tears.
Her head abruptly snapped back into place. I screamed, jumping back. The woman got to her knees, shaking her head from side to side, then turned to glare at me.
“Meanie! You hit me,” she wailed in a high, flutey, babyish voice.
I stared at her and touched a broken street light, using magic to make it work so I saw better. She dusted off her blue and white dress. There were so many layers to the petticoat under the skirt that it looked like a frothy meringue. Her legs were covered in white stockings with little bows at the knees; they went down to petite, doll-like shoes, also blue, that tied around the stockings with satin ribbon. She had perfect pink pouty lips, rosy cheeks, and soft blue eyes. “You’re okay? I didn’t kill you.”
“No, you hit me.” She pointed to her head. “Just because I can’t feel the pain doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”
I took a minute to take a deep breath; relief was like a drug. I hadn’t killed her. “You were following me.”
She stopped pouting over being hit and started to look a bit more sheepish. She wrung her hands in her lap.
“I know! I wanted to talk to you but I was scared to just come up to you. I’m sorry.” She bowed her head. The unruly but somehow still perfect curls fell over her shoulders; she had another satin ribbon tied into her hair.
She looked up at me like a little lost puppy dog, and God help me if her big eyes didn’t make me just want to take her home. Then I recognized her: I’d seen her on stage at Le Cirque de Poupèe.
I offered my hand to pull her up, trying to recall her name. Even in the heels she was wearing, which had to be at least three inches, I towered over her. She was a tiny little thing, all sweet and doll like. It was funny how I’d thought that before, when I first saw her. I watched her face, waiting for it to change into normal lines, but her eyes stayed big and her cheeks stayed rosy, almost as if they were carved into stone.
“Are you sure I didn’t hurt you? Trinket, isn’t it?”
“No, my head is rather solid.” She made a fist with her hand and tapped it against her forehead. It echoed dully.
“What the?”
“Please don’t be alarmed, Miss Farbanks, please.” She gripped my hand–and it was a strong grip, much stronger than a human’s.
“What are you?”
“I’m a clockwork doll.”
* * * *
I took Trinket back to my apartment. She draped her cloak across the back of the couch and sat down, looking around curiously.
“Something to drink?” I suggested.
“No, thank you,” she said politely, “I don’t have a stomach.”
I retrieved a beer from the fridge for myself. Dropping down into the armchair, I studied her a little more. Knowing that she was a clockwork doll, her appearance began to make sense: the way her hair always stayed perfect, the glassy look to her eyes–they were actual glass; her skin was some sort of rubber that allowed her to mimic expressions.
If I listened carefully I heard the little gears and cogs moving inside her. I sipped my beer, watching as she wrung her hands again, a strange, nervous gesture which I didn’t understand. Surely she didn’t have nerves?
Finally, tired of waiting for her to speak first, I put my beer down on the table with a thunk and got started. “So, Trinket, what is it you think I can do for you?”
“I–I need help.”
“All right.” I leaned back in the chair, prepared to listen to a long tale of woe. “Tell me.”
Her chest rose and fell as though with a deep breath, but I was pretty sure that she didn’t need to breathe. She was a full package of human actions.
“My father was an alchemist. He created me, pieced me together in his workshop and brought me to life with oil, mechanics and a little magic. Despite the outside of me and most of the inside of me, I have a spirit here.” She placed her hand on her chest. “I know that I was someone before I was this, but I have no memory of whom. I’ve been Trinket since I sat up on his work bench and he smiled at me. I loved him very much. But he was very ill; I was the last he was able to make.”
As she spoke, oil oozed from the corners of her eyes. She dabbed at the fake tears with a lace handkerchief she pulled from her puffed sleeve.
“It devastated our mother. Even now she refuses to let us talk about him–not that my sisters do.”
“Your sisters?”
“Yes. He made all of us. Then Mother bound us to her, used her magic to keep us alive, to give us our spirits. We’re all connected, but I don’t want to be anymore.”
“Why not?”
; “Mother isn’t the same anymore.”
I reached over to pat her hand. Up close, Trinket was a little unnerving. Once, when I was a kid, maybe six or seven, we’d agreed to help clear out an elderly tenant’s apartment. The woman had collected dolls. Her apartment was crammed full of them; they lined the walls and furniture in every room. I swear the little eyes followed you everywhere. Consequently, I have doll issues.
“How so?”
I found myself staring at the roses in the vase rather than at her as she went on.
“She,” she paused and started again. “She makes me clean my dressing room. She orders me to, I just have to do it. I don’t want to.” Again she paused. “Being made to do things isn’t right. She makes me practice long hours, she doesn’t get that I’m only pretending to mess up routines so I don’t have to…”
She sounded like a teen complaining about her mother treating her like a child—then going ahead and acting like one. I was completely prepared to write this off as a domestic situation, one that I had no real experience with as an only child. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but I had other concerns. The police were going to need me, I had to prioritize that. Also my locket was drained, it needed recharging. I’d spent too much time recently using it to work over here during the day. That meant, like it or not, I would be spending tomorrow on the normal side, where I wouldn’t have access to any of my paranormal resources. It took me a minute to notice that Trinket had stopped talking.
She stared at me, it was if she was trying to force words out but she couldn’t. Finally she said, “I can’t tell you everything. She’s got power over me and certain dealings she wants kept secret. If she forbids us to speak of something, we cannot breathe a word of it.”
“How long ago did your father die?”
“Fifteen years. He was a very kind, very gentle man. He couldn’t give Mother real children, so he created them for her. He was very skilled. Losing him broke something in Mother, I think.” She looked sad again.
I found that more than anything, I was curious about how she worked; how the mechanical and magical were blended so that she saw through glass eyes, talk without a human throat. How did she think and feel without a brain or a heart?
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said, “and then I read an article about you in a magazine. I thought that if I could just meet you, talk to you, that I could ask you to help me. You’ve helped so many.”
I felt my cheeks flush with the compliments, then something dawned on me. “You sent me the tickets?”
“Yes, I came here and I went to the vampire club. I didn’t know where you would be, but I had to make sure you came to the show. I saw you sitting in the audience at the curtain call, and I was so pleased. By the time I managed to get free from the backstage area, though, I saw you rushing out of the building with your friend. I couldn’t chase after you.”
“How did you get out here tonight then?”
“I…I agreed to run an errand. They will not be pleased with me when I return without what I was sent for.”
“What is it? If I have it here then you can have it.”
Her large eyes always made her seem somewhat surprised or scared; I had to watch her mouth to gauge her emotions. She looked back down at her hands in her lap.
“It’s all right.”
I sympathized with her. I had never been under such a compulsion, but I found the very notion distasteful. “Okay,” I said. “So, you want my help? What exactly is it that you want me to do?”
“I need you to break this spell. I want free will. Mother’s gone too far this time. They need me, but without me things will be better. I can pay you–but not a lot.”
She reached into a pocket and brought out a small porcelain pig with china blue eyes that matched her own; its rear was printed with a bright yellow daisy.
“I think there might be a hundred or so pounds in there. I couldn’t bring myself to smash it open, but it’s yours.”
I picked up the little pig and looked at its slightly downturned eyes. It was a very sweet little thing and felt quite heavy.
“Look, I’ll help,” I said standing and dropping the pig back into her lap. “You can keep that.” She blinked; I saw that her eyelashes were hot glued on to her eyelid flaps. I gave an involuntary shudder. Think of her as a person, I told myself, not a gigantic china doll. You’ll feel better.
“You’ll help?”
I nodded. Her face visibly brightened. She bounced to her feet.
“Go home and just start by trying to talk out your grievances with your family.” My psychology courses came in handy sometimes. “Communication is the first step toward finding a solution. I’m working on something for the police right now, so it may take me a couple of days to find a way to help you, but I promise I will.” I didn’t have any books on alchemy; I would have to borrow them from Virginia, and seeing as she and I weren’t really talking right now….
Her smile faltered.
“A couple of days?”
“I’m sorry, Trinket; it’s the best I can do for you right now. Just go home, and I’ll be in contact, okay?”
“How? I had to sneak out! That’s not easy, you know. If Momma caught me…” She was pouting now, sullen.
“I’ll come to the show again. We can talk after. You can tell me how the talk went. If you don’t want them to see us, we can meet in the bathrooms or outside.”
The dejected look on her face as she left stayed in my mind for a long time.
Chapter Twelve
The next day I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling and thinking. Not anything deep or meaningful, just those lazy half thoughts you have when you’re still half asleep and are trying to decide what to do with your day. I used to fill my days with college, but since I had quit that in favor of running my own business. I’d been working extra daytime hours to make ends meet, and had drained my locket dry in the process. I looked at it, sitting nestled between the three prisms, charging up. I was glad to be forced to take a break while I waited for it to be energized’ I’d need to get away from distractions like werewolves and vampires.
Aram hadn’t returned to my dreams since the encounter in the alley, which I could only be grateful for. I closed my eyes, thinking back to it, and felt my belly flip. On the one hand, I was extremely embarrassed to have been so wanton; but on the other hand–and there was always another hand–it was one of the most erotic experiences of my life. We’d never done something like that before; and after nearly three months untouched, I was so shamefully easy. I squirmed a little.
The phone rang. I reached over and picked it up.
“Hello,” I said, trying to make my voice sound normal. I tried again. “Hello.”
No answer. I sat up and looked at the handset: unknown number. I put the phone back to my ear, straining to hear any sound on the other end.
“Hello? Is someone there? Hello?”
I thought I heard the faint sound of breathing. I was starting to get pissed off.
“Who is this?”
The dial tone was my only answer. I had never had a phone call like it before. You saw it all the time in horror movies, especially the scream movies, where the killer would call their victim to mess with them. Well, I told myself, throwing the duvet back, now well and truly awake, I wasn’t in a horror movie–so whatever freak show was calling me only to say nothing could just go straight to hell.
I padded into the kitchen in my pajamas, putting on the kettle to make some coffee, then opened and closed cupboards, looking for something to eat. I made Coco Puffs, watching the milk turn brown as I poured it over the saturated corn puffs. I leaned back against the counter, spooning the cereal into my mouth, putting it down once or twice to tug at my sleep shorts, which had ridden up a bit too much in the night.
I had this nagging thought at the back of my brain, an idea that wouldn’t quite form. It was as though I had forgotten something, and the back of my mind was working hard to recall it. I hoped I remember
ed what it was before it developed into a headache. I put the empty bowl down, deciding to wander down to get my mail. I palmed my keys, went to open the door and nearly tripped over a box sitting against the inside of the door. I smacked into the door, knocking it closed again, palms flat against it to steady myself. I looked down at the offending package.
It was a square box, white, trimmed in green ribbon. It looked a lot like the box that the roses were in. It was left right up against the door so that I couldn’t help but trip over it. How had it gotten there? I didn’t remember if I had carried any packages or anything up with me last night. I bent down to peer at it and poked it with the end of my key. It didn’t blow up or wriggle about, so I picked it up and took it into the kitchen, the rest of my mail forgotten for the moment.
I placed the box down on the counter and pulled the ribbon slowly so that the bow unwove and fell away. Carefully, I peeled back the lid, releasing faint floral smell. I peered into the box; it held a potted plant with deep purple flowers and lots of green leaves. I lifted the plant out into the light and saw another card flutter down to the countertop. I set the plant down and flipped the cream-colored card over to read the message.
Violets are blue.
I looked between the card and the plant, assuming that they were violets.
“Well, these are actually kind of purple.” I flipped the card between my fingers and searched through the box for anything else. Empty. I reached out for my phone and dialed one of the numbers that I had on my speed dial. A sleepy voice answered.
“What?”
“I got another box.”
I heard the creak of her bed as Incarra rolled over.
“Box? You woke me to tell me you got a box?”
“It’s almost lunch time, lazy bones. I thought you had classes today?”
“Evening classes. What box?”
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