Of Steel and Steam: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  She opened it to find a lanky gentleman, his blue eyes bright against the pale complexion of one who spent most of his time indoors, and a bushy mop of dark hair with the muttonchops that were fashionable, standing on her stoop. He held a briefcase and glanced around nervously, as if he wasn’t used to being in such parts of town.

  “Hello. I’m looking for Henry Smythe.” His carefully modulated voice reminded her of a professor she’d heard speak when her father had snuck her into a symposium as a child, and she instantly liked it.

  “I’m Henry. Can I help you?” She glanced down at her trousers and hoped her bindings were sufficient.

  “I’m Leo Calshire. I believe our mutual friend Edward may have mentioned me. He explained the work that you’re doing with crystals and thought I would be of assistance. I’m sorry for dropping in like this, but I was eager to discuss your experiments.”

  Hattie stepped aside. “Please come in. It’s not a problem at all. Honestly, I’m in a bit of a quandary and could use someone to help.” Not to mention that it was getting lonely working on her own with something she really couldn’t share with others. Even her housekeeper noticed her distraction being more than usual and had commented that she might need to get out and have a pint. Talk to people. It would keep her from going mad.

  She tried to see her small living space through his eyes. A large sitting room where she’d set up her experiments and often ate her meals. A small kitchen and water closet led off of it, as was the closed door to her bedroom. Surely he’d seen far better places in Britain and hoped he didn’t think worse of her, or think she was a savage American for it. “Please, have a seat.” She indicated the chair without her quilt on it. “Can I put on some tea?”

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate that. I just arrived last night and found lodging in a boarding house close to here. This is a rather rough neighborhood for a scientist, is it not?”

  She smiled as she turned and went to the area she’d converted into a kitchen to fill her kettle from the indoor pump, a luxury she enjoyed, and then put it on the stove to boil. Edward had made sure she was well apportioned for tea and she carried the cups and saucers, including a tin of biscuits she bought recently and set them on the small table between the chairs. “It suits me well,” she replied. People here didn’t ask questions, and the Musimagium didn’t offer much of a stipend. Never mind that if her experiments work, it could revolutionize how mages communicated.

  She scanned him for any signs of magic, surprised when she sensed a strong signature. Like her, it seemed his magic lent itself to tinkering and working with mechanical objects. “I’ve been reading the notes that Edward sent me about your work.” She’d about memorized them, though she wouldn’t reveal that to him. “Would you mind telling me about it in person? Perhaps I can find something that will help me with my research here.”

  “You’re direct. I like that. I’d be happy to share what I know, though I will warn you, most scientific circles seem to think what I’m doing is foolish.”

  Hattie chuckled, then quickly stopped in case it sounded too feminine. “I’m sure there were those who called Marco Polo foolish as well. I will not pass judgment. I assure you.”

  “Very good, then.” He told her about his work with crystals, how he used a tuning fork to discover that they resonated in different ways. He passed light through them. Then, after a pause, he discussed using it to pass magical energy through the crystals. And he found, when the energy was directed in such a way and carried all the way across to the other crystal that the magic could be amplified.

  The kettle whistled and she poured the hot water, her interest piqued by what he said. If the magic had to be amplified on the receiving end, then that would require the other party to know and to be aware. The length of a lecture hall, like Edward had said, was one thing. Across the ocean, something different.

  And yet, the more he spoke, the more she believed they would believe her hypothesis. The Musimagium, though in secret, was using energy for other things, such as generating light without the use of lamp oil or even, though this was only just a rumor, making trains move faster than possible. They’d even stored magic energy in crystals and set it across the ocean to be used in other places, or across the continent to help with the exploration of the west.

  She sipped her tea, letting the musical quality of his voice carry her thoughts even further.

  When he finished, he complemented her hospitality, and then asked, “so Edward tells me you’re trying to do this with telegraph signals?”

  The proof sat on the table behind her, and yet, something about revealing her work—experiments that had been reviled by many in the magical community—rendered her mute.

  He smiled. “I will not pass judgment. I assure you.” And with him repeating her words back to her, an understanding passed between them, along with a spark of something she did not dare name.

  Chapter 3

  Leo checked her measurements and her calculations, reviewing her notes. Letting someone else see her work sent flutters of apprehension through her. Other than her tests with George, which mostly were amplifying existing telegraph signals, not passing them through thin air, very few people knew of her work. Even the Council which had allowed her stipend knew her based on her father’s reputation and her use of only her first initial. Thankfully, on any official Musimagium work, he’d listed her as H. Smythe, son, and no one had questioned it, especially when he’d worked hard to keep her out of sight and away from the intrigue and gesturing that often accompanied many magical gatherings.

  “This is very good work. What did you say your experience was again?”

  “Self-taught,” she replied. “My father was an engineer and worked with the telegraph for the Musimagium. I’m merely seeing if I can extend his work and perhaps give him a legacy.” There, she’d admitted her deepest thoughts. Giving her father a legacy, making sure that while he’d been looked down on as “just” a laborer because his magic allowed him to work with mechanical things, but not do much else, he’d be remembered as something more. The stratified society of the Musimagium left little room for those who weren’t very powerful or very wealthy, and her family was neither.

  “This is excellent work. It’s easily the equal of what I see among my star pupils.”

  “Pupils? You teach?”

  “I thought Edward told you. I teach at the Musimagium’s London Academy. University really, because it’s for those who have graduated their secondary schooling, but there are so few students it’s all on the same campus.”

  Her eyes widened. “No, he didn’t. He gets absent minded sometimes when he’s involved in his own work.”

  “We all do.” Leo chuckled, and the deep, resonant tones warmed her. “They also keep him busy. I understand he attends many functions because of his family. How long have you known him?”

  “My father introduced us. He met Edward on a trip to Britain to learn about the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, thinking it may be superior to the American one. I’m not sure how they met, but he discussed my work with him and we began corresponding. I know nothing about his family or his place in the society.”

  “And he tries to keep it that way. There are those who feel he shouldn’t be friends with just a lowly instructor who tinkers.” He chuckled again. “That’s what they call me. I have no use for that anyway. What good does it do? How does it further education and enlightenment? The world is so much larger than what goes on in ballrooms and parks.”

  “Exactly!” Her exuberance shocked him and she turned away quickly as heat flushed over her cheeks. An image, unbidden, of him in a fashionable suit, and her in a dress, the shoulders bare, the sleeves widened toward her wrists, and her skirts billowing, filled her mind. For him, she’d don the silly frocks just to see the look in his eyes. And that would never happen. She tamped down the feminine part of herself. Her father had wanted a son. She’d be the son he had desired.

  “I see we are of the same mind. Shall you
replicate the work you’ve been doing?”

  Happy to return to her scientific experiments, she nodded, and a moment later flipped the switch and checked the needles on the telegraph. This was far more comforting than thinking about Leo… and dresses.

  The insights Leo brought to her work amazed her, though they also reminded her of the things on which she’d missed out by being born a girl and not going to the Academy. At least not far beyond secondary school, as they intended her to marry a mage and go to do what—keeping house? Having children? The thought of either terrified her. She glanced across the table at Leo, his coat off and his shirt rolled up to reveal his forearms. He stared at the crystals and the hum of magic filled the air. The press of his lips together as he thought and the furrow between his brow caught her attention, as did the slope of his aquiline nose. She’d thought about those lips more and more, though thankfully he’d been so lost in his work he hadn’t noticed. He also hadn’t cared that the door to her bedroom remained closed and she always met him in trousers and a shirt, carefully bound so as not to reveal her secrets.

  “I think the angle’s all wrong,” he said at last. “You’re keeping the crystals in a straight line on the table, but nothing in nature is a truly straight line. Even the things we think are straight, like the trunk of a tree, are still subject to the whims of the bark and animals.”

  She nodded. They’d been staring at her experiments for over a week now and not coming any closer to making them happen. “I see that, but mostly telegraph wire is straight.”

  “Try this.” He brought a crystal that he must have had in his bag, one with two holes in it for telegraph wire, though they didn’t pass all the way through the crystal. He swapped out her crystal for this one, still a chunk of quartz. He put the wire into the first hole, then directed one from the second hole to her crystal, which he set on top of the wire. He rearranged the ear trumpet, then tapped out some Morse code.

  A very faint da da da dit da emerged from the ear trumpet.

  “Oh!” Hattie dashed to the end of the table and pressed her face against it to make sure she was as close to the ear trumpet as possible. “Do that again.”

  Leo repeated the experiment.

  “So we’re passing the signal through the crystal into the wire, then through the crystal into the ear trumpet? That doesn’t leave us any gaps for the signal to pass through does it?”

  “Right. We’re going to start here to see if we can pass the signal. In my experiment, I was able to send the signal along the length of a room because I encased it in magic. I’m not sure that’s possible though if we’re looking at talking to Edward. There’s not enough magic to carry it all the way across the ocean.” He adjusted the wires and the crystals, putting small spaces between them. “Let’s try this, and I want you to keep a constant magic field around the wires. Are you able to work with that much precision?”

  She nodded. “I am.”

  “Great.” He smiled. “When I say when…” He fussed with the equipment, then went to the telegraph. “Okay when.”

  Hattie focused her energy on creating a magic extension of the cable. Like a string, only larger, and taking it as far as the crystal, then imagining it going through the crystal. She worked to expand the magic across the gaps. Sweat beaded on her brow.

  A louder, more audible da da da dit da sounded from the ear trumpet.

  She released the magic with a gasp, staggering back a step before making it to a chair and sitting down. Leo pressed a cup of water into her hands. She drank the tepid liquid greedily.

  “That was good. Really good. You’re powerful. I’m surprised you didn’t go to any university level classes at the Academy,” he said.

  She put the glass on the table, debating how much to tell. “My father worked telegraph lines. We couldn’t afford it.”

  Leo nodded. “Too many good mages are held back by those rules. I’m sorry it affected you.”

  Too many good mages are being kept from the Academy because they’re women. She kept the thought to herself. “Shall we try again?” She stood and moved back to the table.

  “Yes, I’d like to repeat it before we make any more adjustments.”

  They repeated the experiment several more times. Now, to figure out how to send the magic across short distances without the aid of the magic, or at least magic as a pathway. When they finished, she took meticulous notes while Leo returned to the boarding house to take care of arrangements. He’d planned on returning to England within the next week, but things were going so well, he wanted to extend his stay. As soon as he was gone, Hattie returned to searching her book of spells. If someone couldn’t be there to actually guide the magic along the space, then perhaps it could be sent. She dreamed of being able to converse with Edward, to talk theories with him, or even keep in touch with Leo when he went back to Britain.

  That night after a dinner of stew and a blessed unwinding of her bindings, Hattie sat in her chair, the quilt pulled up to her chin. Despite the stove putting out heat, she shivered as if a cool breeze had darted down the back of her neck. She read the spell book her father had given her, pausing every few pages to clear her throat. A strange tickle, like the one she often got when she walked into the industrial section of town to the railroads, remained. She sipped a cup of chamomile tea, her eyelids drooping.

  None of the spells she looked at seemed powerful enough to carry the communication. Most of them were used short term or with touch. They all seemed almost too civilized, like two people speaking to each other over a cup of tea. She wanted something with the power to carry a voice across oceans, something that even the inventors scoffed at wires and connections.

  One word came to mind, a spell she’d only heard used once when a storm was bearing down on the small dugout she shared with her father before his move to St. Louis. The swirling black clouds appeared to swallow the landscape, and he’d stood before the wooden door, after yelling at her to get inside and yelled ecfreno, which he’d later told her meant to unbridle, like turning a racehorse loose without tack.

  “What did you do, daddy?” she asked. She’d peered around the door, never mind that he’d told her to go to the back of the dugout and not open the door for anything.

  “I released magic.”

  “At the storm?” She looked wide-eyed at him, imagining her father standing big and strong against the banging thunder and lashing rain.

  “In general, yes. Mostly I just sent it at the storm hoping it would deflect it.” He pulled her into his arms. “And it did, my little inventor. It did.” He kissed the top of her head. “Now clean up the best you can. We’re going into town. I have a meeting with the railroad.”

  She’d washed her face and hands, dressing in the long trousers and long-sleeved shirt to make it look as if she were wearing her brother’s hand-me-down clothes. If she kept her head down, no one really thought of her anything as other than her father’s son, and she liked it that way.

  When they went into town, her world changed completely because her father had been assigned to St. Louis and they’d moved from the small dugout to a lean-to shack in the workman part of town. Her father had sent her to a community school run by the Musimagium to learn. Every once in a while she saw a lady with her skirts and parasol accompanying one official, and she tried to imagine what it would be like. It seemed horribly restrictive. She coughed and went to bed. Maybe she’d feel better in the morning.

  Chapter 4

  Morning brought chills and a cough so bad Hattie feared she’d contracted some kind of plague. Her housekeeper came by, took one look at Hattie still in bed and tsk tsk’d at her, before making up a pot of water and some kind of herbal tea strong enough to strip paint from metal. Hattie dressed, hating her bindings even more because they kept her from breathing fully and sipped the tea. When Leo came to continue their experiments, she sent him away.

  In between bouts of coughing and sleeping, Hattie thought about the spell her father had used, how ecfreno had the p
ower to turn away what would have possibly washed out their little home. Did it have enough power to send words, or even thoughts, across empty air? She longed to get out of bed and try, but moving as far as her water closet proved enough to tax her energy. Night fell and Hattie crawled into bed. Nightmares interrupted her sleep of mages discovering her gender, disavowing all her work and making it difficult for her to continue with her experiments. Most of all, Leo curled his lips in disgust and turned away.

  She tossed and turned. Blankets tangled around her legs. She thrashed as the nightmares came and went, coherent stories giving away to mocking faces, her worst fears realized. When daylight broke she lay in bed, sweat pouring from her in buckets. She’d already given her housekeeper the day off, and Hattie somehow made it to the stove where the broth simmered and pour herself a mug. She sipped it with shaking hands.

  The transient properties of the spells refused to stay in her mind. She struggled to think about them, but as soon as she focused on something it slipped away. She turned down the stove, banking the coals because it was so hot in her room. She tossed off her blankets, even gave up on her bindings and put on a long cotton housedress like she wore in the summer. She sweat through it.

  She needed a bath. The broth kettle ran dry and she struggled to heat some water for tea. Lacking the strength to even do that, she lay back down only to find that she’d never left the bed. The world became hazy. At one point she drank with a glass pressed to her lips, and she muttered equations and experiments under her breath. Her dreams became filled with crystals and colors, and spells became visual representations of light. She reached out; the sheets covering her hands. A voice, low and masculine told her to quiet, that it would be okay. She’d get better now that the fever had broken.