Arachnodactyl (12 page)

Ikey pressed the tips of his fingers against his lips to shut them.

“There’s nothing to it,” Rose said.

“And that’s what makes me feel so daft,” Ikey said, his fingers dropping away. “Just how easy it is. I can close my eyes and pretend to not see a thing, but I can’t—I mean, you can tell when a lantern is burning and I can’t. Not unless I open my eyes. How is that?”

“The smell. The sound. It hisses.”

Water lapped at the sides of the tub as Rose scrubbed at the dishes.

“And your hands,” Ikey said.

The lapping of the water cooled in intensity.

“They’re amazing. I’ve never seen anything like them. They take my breath away. They’re so… The elegance of them. The craft. It’s the only way in which I pity you. That you can’t look down at your own hands and see how beautiful they are.”

Ikey trembled. Surely Rose knew, could feel the air lapping at her skin as it left his shivering muscles in ripples like a pond. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

The scrubbing resumed.

“Cross said your hands are blistered, didn’t he? You can give them a rest tonight. I’ll take care of the dishes. Do you wish to skip knitting lessons tonight? If you’d like a bath, help yourself.”

Ikey’s fingers curled around the edge of the door’s trim. He took a deep breath, nodded once in the dark. “Yes,” he managed, and bit down on his tongue. He turned and stumbled on to the stairwell.

I
key’s hand
drifted out before him as his feet propelled him through the dark and the chattering music boxes. He could strike a match, but it wouldn’t seem right. It would be insincere after everything he had said. Though his mind reeled with the words that had dropped from his mouth, he attempted to reconstruct what he had said as if putting a machine back together. Or one of Cross’s music boxes. His words didn’t seem to fit together the way that… the way they went into people’s ears. Square pegs and round holes and all that.

Likewise, the words of men were easy to handle. They were designed to impress some, assure others, or cut down a few. They were shifting, twisting blades and pikes and they danced in slow and deliberate motions. Even when they weren’t easy to avoid, such as Cross’s words, Ikey knew what the words meant. He knew he was meant to feel small.

Rose’s words… they fit together like the music boxes. Like something Cross designed. They answered questions he hadn’t asked. They eluded what he wanted to know. They were dark words. Hidden. But damn him for not asking point blank what he wanted to learn.

His toe thumped against wood. Ikey widened the arc of his arm. His hand bumped against the newel post of the stairs. He counted another 17 steps before he reached the top. The wall ran beneath his fingers as he proceeded down the hall. Once he felt the bathroom’s doorway under his fingers, he stopped and slipped in.

The bathroom’s layout eluded his memory. The tub sat off to his right, the sink at his left hand. The commode sat on the other side of the sink. He reached out to his left. Cool porcelain appeared under his touch. He placed his hand onto the sink. It soothed the angry, open blisters. He took several deep breaths, then pulled his hand away. The skin stuck to the sink and peeled away with a wet sound.

He could not operate the bath tub in the dark. He’d never had a bath in a tub with running water, and though Rose had told him how it worked, he’d never find the plug or the chain or the knob without light. Or bath linens for that matter.

How much practice must be required to be Rose. To know where everything waited, and to set her hand upon it because she knew it was there.

Ikey sighed and slipped a hand into his pocket. He produced a match and struck it against the doorjamb. The orange-white blob hissed and thrashed into life.

A candle sat on a narrow table to the right. Ikey lit it, then located what he needed for a bath. As water rushed into the tub, Ikey undressed and left his clothes in a smoky pile on the floor. Once he turned the spigot off and placed his soap and washcloth in reach of the tub, he cupped a hand around the flame and blew it out. As the darkness leapt out from the shadows, he felt that Rose was near. That she could be near. She was darkness itself.

Ikey straightened his back and the muscles there groaned for his effort. He listened for long legs and sharp-heeled boots on the stairs, of tinkling music boxes. He inhaled deeply and smelled only acrid tallow.

After his bath, he left the candle and his clothes in the water closet and padded down the hall in the dark, his fingers trailing along the wall and his bare feet pressing into the cool wood. Once he reached his room, he swept his hand out before him until he found a bed post. Feeling along the edge of the mattress, he found the nightshirt, shimmied in, and crawled over the mattress to the window.

The curtains had been returned to their place over the course of the day. Ikey shoved them aside and lifted the window. Below, light fell into the yard from the windows of Cross’s workshop. Above, stars glimmered in patches torn from the clouds. A waning moon softened the dark outside, and a group of men burst into barking laughter somewhere in the distance.

What was his uncle and dad doing at that moment? How did Uncle Michael fare without Ikey around to help him dress, go to the bathroom, take him out to the barn for work? Ikey’s chin dipped as he thought of Uncle Michael in his chair, imprisoned as his brother-in-law laid out cold in the back room, snoring and reeking of beer.

Had they gotten the nursemaid as promised? It seemed unlikely. She would ask questions, ask Uncle Michael what happened to him. Dad didn’t like that. But Uncle Michael brought in money. His brother-in-law would have to respect that. He’d have to make an overture at caring for the man.

Ikey’s grip tightened on the window sill until the pain of his blisters sparked. He let go.

It was his dad’s carelessness, his callousness that put his family in these situations. Uncle Michael’s accident. His mother begging for a doctor as fever burned up her daughter.

Ikey had to get back to the farm. If Cross got fed up with him, cast him out, and he had to go back in disgrace, at least he’d be around to care for Uncle Michael, look after him.

If he went back without the money, however, could he weather his dad’s wrath? Would he not need a wheeled chair himself? Or worse?

It’d be best to finish the job. To do what he could to get on Cross’s good side; follow him out to the workshop tomorrow and get involved in the project. Cross wasn’t his dad. There was no reason for animosity.

The stairs creaked.

Ikey lowered himself into the bed and counted as the stairs creaked another 16 times. At the top, the steps continued toward the back of the house. They were Rose’s footsteps.

Ikey’s heart thudded against the back of his throat. When her footsteps continued past the water closet, his breath stalled.

A light knock peppered the door.

“Yes?” Ikey called out. He coughed.

The door creaked open. Ikey peered into the dark. The weak light of the stars and town dribbled through the window to show where the door parted from the wall, but he could not discern between Rose and the shadows, black on black.

“I wanted to check on you,” Rose said. “Did you find everything you needed for your bath?”

“I did. Thank you.”

The door widened a few inches further and creaked with the effort.

“I brought lineament for your hands. It will soothe and help them heal. Would you like some?”

Ikey nodded, then shook his head at his own stupidity. “I guess,” he said. His hands throbbed. Anything to help him face the next day would be welcomed.

The door opened halfway. Shadows rustled as Rose stepped through. As she approached the bed, her form eclipsed what little of the wall he could see. Before her, she held a small canister in the palm of her hand. Her fingers curled up around it.

Rose sat on the edge of the bed. His weight shifted towards her like a planet drawn towards a dark sun, if there was such a thing.

“Give me your hand,” she said.

Ikey swallowed.

“Come on, give me your hand. Cross always uses too much of this. You can’t lather it on. A little goes a long way.”

Rose unscrewed the canister. Camphor spilled into the air. Her fingertips whispered as she swept her hand in an arc along the top of the bed until her fingers lighted on his arm. She picked it up. Her fingers were the cool of stone in the morning. With her right hand, Rose swiped her fingertips through the canister, then stroked his palm. Ikey sucked in a deep breath as the blisters flared and his fingers flexed. The temptation to close his hand around hers gripped him.

“Am I hurting you?” Rose asked.

“No.” He drew his knees up and planted the balls of his heels into the mattress.

Rose’s hands rubbed more of the lineament into Ikey’s. He watched, rapt in the near-dark as her fingers ran up and down his own hand, the pain in his blisters forgotten. Had he brought the candle with him, he could have better witnessed her hands at work.

His eyes grew heavy, and his body sank into the mattress. Restfulness settled on his chest like a warm and lethargic cat. Though his blinks came slow and deliberate, Ikey forced his eyes to remain open and focused on the pale swirls of Rose’s hands.

She let go. His hand slid from hers and dropped to his side. It lay on the bed and pulsed and tingled. Rose shifted on the bed and turned more towards Ikey.

“Your other hand,” she said.

Ikey placed his other hand in Rose’s outstretched palm. She applied more of the lineament and began to rub.

Despite his best efforts, Ikey’s eyelids slipped down and remained closed. The warmth of the lineament and the friction of the rubbing radiated along his arm. Underneath the window full of cricket song, dreams of mechanical hands made of ivory slipped into his head.

The dreams dissipated as Rose placed his hand by his side. As she drew her hand away from his her knuckles brushed across his penis, erect and pushing at the cotton of his nightshirt.

His eyes flew open.

“Better?” Rose asked.

A quick answer. Any answer.

“Yes. Thank you.” His words stumbled off his tongue.

She laid the flat of her fingers against the shaft of his cock and drew them up to the tip. Ikey’s breath hissed from him and his eyes fluttered shut. His whole body wanted to squirm and press itself against her.

“Is this okay?” Rose asked.

“Yes,” he said in a shaky breath and thrust his hips up a bit. Rose responded by pressing her palm against his cock, then ran the tips of her fingers down along his thigh to the hem of his nightshirt.

Ikey tried to watch, but her hand slipped under the nightshirt and traced its way back up his thigh. Ikey sucked in a mouthful of air. A shiver racked him as if the air itself trembled.

Rose’s fingers traced over the shaft of his cock again before she wrapped her hand around it and began to stroke. The remaining liniment on her hand burned and tingled and Ikey’s hands drew up fistfuls of quilt. He leaned his head back, and all thought leaked out until his eyes drifted shut and his hips lifted in rhythm with her stroking.

With a gasp, Ikey came and slumped into the mattress. All of his muscles felt stretched out, tightened to the point of breaking, then released.

The mattress shifted as Rose stood up. “One moment.”

Her skirts rustled, but Ikey couldn’t focus his eyes and follow where she went.

A drawer scraped along its tracks. Rose returned and mopped up the mess from Ikey’s belly.

“This is between us,” Rose said. “Cross doesn’t have to know.”

“All right.” His eyes flicked up to the open window.

Rose walked away. She paused at the door a moment, then shut it behind herself as she left. Ikey listened to her footsteps enter the water closet, then recede down the stairs.

The weariness of the day settled in and bore through his bones like worms through soft wood. Ikey lifted a hand and brought it to his face. Camphor baked off of it like heat. He touched his fingers to his lips, and they rested there a moment before he drew them away. A tingle fluttered over his face. It seemed that a kiss should have been involved. Did Rose even have lips?

Ikey tugged the quilt over himself. The thought arose that after touching him like that, he should at least be able to see her face, to wipe the veil away and gaze on whatever she hid underneath.

A smirk creased his lips. He could always ask Cross.

T
he door flew
open and Cross announced that it was time to get moving, Irving.

Ikey stared at Cross, eyes wide and the quilt clutched before him, heart in throat.

Cross started to leave, but then paused. He turned back. One eyebrow lifted a tiny bit.

“You all right?” Cross asked.

“Yes,” Ikey said. “Just tired.”

Cross smirked. “Ain’t no excuse. Get your arse up.”

“Will do.”

Cross left and shut the door behind himself. Ikey collapsed onto bed. The curtain above stirred in a breeze. What the hell had he been thinking? At least he wouldn’t have to see much of Cross from the boiler room. Once he got out the door, Cross wouldn’t look at him again until it was time to head back.

Ikey’s stomach fluttered at the thought of returning to Cross’s house that night, of seeing Rose again. His pecker stiffened. He tossed the quilt back and climbed out of bed before sinking deeper into such thoughts.

In the dawn light, he examined his hands. Puffy redness remained where blisters had formed and popped, but they appeared less angry than the night before. And though his hands ached like they might crack if he flexed them, they no longer burned and throbbed.

Once again, there was not one sign of Rose as Ikey gulped down his tepid tea and Cross folded his paper and dropped it to the table. After they left, Cross bought them pies, and as Ikey took his from the costermonger, he smiled at the thought of getting away with something. Cross, brilliant as he was, appeared to have no clue that Ikey had been with his wife. The realization flickered across his bones and greased his muscles.

The costermonger smiled back with a nod. “A good day to you, too.”

Ikey nodded, then darted his attention to the sky. As seagulls turned drifting circles above, Ikey ate his pie quickly, prepared to bat away the daring birds.

Once they reached the
Kittiwake
, Cross called Sharp onto the deck and said to him, “Wendy told you no fire today, right?”

“Aye,” Sharp said with a nod. Even without tending the boiler, the odors of sweat and coal continued to swirl around him, thick as ever. “I been down in the quarters, finishing bunks.”

Cross nodded and rubbed his fingers across his chin. “Take Ikey and keep him busy. You were a bit hard on him yesterday. Doubt he’ll be able to hold a hammer. Maybe he can fetch you some lumber.”

“There’ll be nothing doing,” Sharp said and shook his head. “Ikey’s a hard worker.” He winked at Ikey. “He’ll match me stroke for stroke.”

Cross chuckled. “That’ll be good. I’m sure he needs to get it out of his system, because with those hands, there wasn’t much stroking going on at my place last night.”

Ikey looked away as his cheeks burned. The smile crept onto his face again.

Sharp guffawed and slapped Ikey on the shoulder. “Ah, you were too tired for that anyway, I bet, hard as you worked yesterday. Come on. Let’s get cracking.”

Ikey followed Sharp down the stairs and along a hall to the cramped quarters where the small crew would sleep. Several assembled bunks hung in a column against one wall, but the lumber and space for more lay spread around the room.

As Sharp closed the door behind them, he turned to Ikey and asked if his hands were really that bad.

Ikey shook his head and held up his palms. Sharp leaned forward and inspected them with squinted eyes. “Bah. They don’t look half bad.”

Sharp picked a hammer up from the seat of a chair. “Do I need to show you how to use this?” he asked.

Ikey shook his head again. “I’ve used a hammer. Lots of times.”

Before they started, Sharp got out a small, open can with a brush handle sticking out of the top. He told Ikey they did things a little differently on the ship. He drove a nail into a board, then plucked the brush out of the can and dabbed at the head with a mixture of paste and sawdust.

“What’s the purpose of that?” Ikey asked.

“Why, it’s to protect the head. You don’t want to drop anything metal on the floor and have the nails spark. Might cause a fire. The balloon is filled with flammable gas, you know,” Sharp said as he pointed at the ceiling.

Ikey cocked an eyebrow. “Why not use wooden nails? They’d be lighter. And they wouldn’t spark.”

Sharp grinned and shook his head. “I see you’ve got a lot to learn yet, lad, but that’s fine, as we all had to start our learning somewhere. What you say about wooden nails might be true, but iron is ten times as strong as wood. Wood rots. It splinters. Iron is solid. And this paste? It’s supposed to help protect against rust, too.”

“Well,” Ikey said as he gestured at the bunk, “why not use joins, too? A dovetail?”

Sharp snickered. “I thought you was suppose to be a chicken farmer’s son. I guess you had to learn a lot about carpentry while building chicken coops, right? Tell me, did you make such fancy coops with wooden nails and dovetailed joins?”

Ikey shook his head. Of course they didn’t.

“And why was that?” Sharp asked.

Color and heat crept into Ikey’s cheeks. He shrugged and glanced away.

“I imagine your old man would have passed out cold at the cost alone. Wooden nails have to be whittled. A fancy join takes time. Admiral Daughton needs this ship built fast as possible. There’s a war on and all. He can’t be waiting for someone to whittle him some nails and fashion him a join.”

Sharp looked up. “But then again, if he’d known that it’d take so long to get the engine in working order, maybe he would have gone for wooden nails and frippery.”

Ikey picked up a hammer and a handful of nails and began to assemble a bunk under the watchful gaze of Sharp, who blathered on and on about an encounter he once had with a chicken in his tenement. Ikey listened with half a mind as he mulled over the nails and joins.

After Ikey assembled a bunk, the two settled into a groove. Though swinging a hammer made the blister on his thumb scream, it felt good to build even a set of bunks. And as Sharp prattled on with endless tales and ceaseless dirty jokes, Ikey’s attention faded in and out, drifting through thoughts of Rose, which he’d have to chase away. Not having to be around Cross was a small blessing that day.

After an hour or so of work, a series of three sharp thumps rang out across the ceiling.

“Shhh!” Sharp hissed and held his finger before his lips.

Ikey sat back on his heels. His hand pulsed and throbbed when not swinging the hammer.

The three sharp thumps echoed again further away.

Sharp shook his head. “That’s code. It means Admiral Daughton is boarding. You met him before?”

Ikey nodded.

“Then I don’t need to tell you to mind your p’s and q’s, do I?”

Ikey shook his head.

“Aye,” Sharp said. “He’ll take a fit and fire a man for looking at him sideways, he will. Swear he’s been through half the men in town already. Keep your nose clean, do.”

The two went back to work for ten minutes, until Admiral Daughton stepped into the crew quarters. Ikey missed a nail and rang the head of the hammer off the board, narrowly missing his finger.

“Why’s he down here?” Admiral Daughton asked. Though he looked straight at him, Ikey didn’t think he was the one being addressed.

“He’s my help, sir. Cross sent him down here,” Sharp said.

“Cross sent him down here?” Admiral Daughton said. He turned towards Sharp.

Sharp nodded.

“Is that true?” Admiral Daughton asked as he turned back to Ikey.

It was Ikey’s turn to nod.

“Leave us,” Admiral Daughton said to Sharp.

Sharp nodded again, then stole a glance at Ikey. His wide eyes and tight lips looked dreadful on a face accustomed to a daft grin about the eyes and a dirty joke on the lips. He left the room with a glance over his shoulder.

Admiral Daughton shut the door behind Sharp. He didn’t slam it, but shut it as if laying it down for a nap. He then flicked the lock underneath the knob. He turned back to Ikey and folded his hands behind his back. His belly bulged out. A flap of it covered the top half of his belt buckle; a metallic shield with the tentacles of an octopus or squid wrapped around crossed spears. “I believe you and I had an agreement with your father.”

Ikey nodded.

“And if I recall, one detail of the agreement was that you would be an apprentice to Mr. Cross. Is that not correct?”

“It’s correct, sir.”

The admiral straightened his back the tiniest bit. “Then why aren’t you upstairs shadowing Mr. Cross at this instant?”

“Cross said—”

“Who’s in charge here, young man?” Admiral Daughton snapped.

Ikey glanced down at the shine of the man’s boots.

“I asked you a question.”

Ikey looked up to the admiral. “You are.”

The admiral’s face flushed in pink. A patch of skin on his cheek quivered. “That’s right. I am. And I did not hire you to come down here and play with a hammer. If you cannot abide by the agreement we made, then perhaps you’d best return empty-handed to your father’s farm.”

Ikey’s grip tightened on the hammer. He’d see Uncle Michael, but Uncle Michael would be sorely disappointed to see him return home before completing the job. His dad would be livid. Explosive. But that storm would pass.

But Uncle Michael’s disappointment would last.

On top of that, without this job, he’d have no reason to be around Rose, and therefore he would have no chance to figure her out.

Ikey swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. I was just following orders—”

“If that was true, you’d be following
my
orders.”

“But Cross—”

“Shut your blasted mouth! I haven’t asked for excuses. I’ve asked you to follow through on our agreement. Since you cannot abide by it, and since you cannot even display the good sense to refrain from backtalk, I’m afraid I’ve no choice but to part ways this instant.”

The statement thundered through the room. It replaced Ikey’s knees with warm wax. His jaw dropped open, but nothing tumbled out.

Admiral Daughton nodded to Ikey’s hand. “You can put the hammer down now, young man. I don’t believe it belongs to you.”

Ikey looked down at the hammer as if noticing it for the first time. The whole situation felt sudden, scrambling at him from nowhere. What would he do for Rose? What could he offer her to entice her away from Cross?

Ikey looked across the room. His jaw trembled, his knuckles ached where his fingers crushed the handle. Its weight felt so solid and purposeful in his hand. A good tool. He sucked in a breath of air.

The doorknob jiggled.

Ikey and Admiral Daughton both faced the door.

“Open this bloody door,” Cross called. He pounded at it with his fist.

“What is it you want?” Admiral Daughton bellowed.

“I want you to open this blasted door right this minute, or I’ll tear it off its bloody hinges.”

Admiral Daughton lurched forward and twisted the latch back.

The door flew open. Cross stood on the other side, tall and thin as the bars on a cell door.

“I’ve been having a talk with young Mr. Berliss, here,” Admiral Daughton said. “We’ve decided it best that he parts ways with us.”

Cross looked to Ikey and cocked an eyebrow. “That true?”

The morning’s pie sat uneasy in Ikey’s stomach. He wanted to sit before it wound up on the tops of his boots. Instead, he looked at the space between himself and Cross and wished for a lapse of light; enough dark to feel safe, to feel Rose’s presence.

Admiral Daughton cleared his throat. “It’s true—”

“It’s not,” Ikey said as he looked back up at Cross. “He’s firing me because I was doing what you said. I was down here building bunks with Sharp like—”

“That’s enough!” Admiral Daughton bellowed. His face flashed to red. He jabbed a finger at Ikey. “Not another word from you. Or you,” he said as he turned to Cross.

Cross folded his arms over his chest.

“He’s finished. I want him off this site now.”

“I’m not done with him,” Cross said.

Admiral Daughton took half a step back. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I’m not done with the lad.”

“I didn’t ask—”

“That’s right. You sure as hell didn’t,” Cross said. “I’m foreman on this project, and I’m telling you he stays. Got it?”

Admiral Daughton jabbed his blunt finger into his own chest. “And I’m the foreman’s boss. Unless you both want to be in search of new employment—”

“Cut the bunkum, man. I’m telling you that he stays until I dismiss him. And we’ll leave it at that, shall we? Or do you really want to discuss why?”

A shade of color dropped from Admiral’s Daughton’s visage. He reached inside his coat and produced a handkerchief, which he then twisted between his meaty hands.

“You’re on awful thin ice here, Mr. Cross. Do you care to discuss that?”

Ikey shifted the hammer from his right to his left hand and flexed his fingers. He had no idea what was going on, but each man stared at one another as if dueling pistols lay between them.

“In the end,” Cross said, “you must ask yourself how much more does the other guy have to lose.”

Admiral Daughton stared a moment more. His jaw bulged with tension and the wattle under his chin grew an inch. “Since you see something in this lout that I have obviously missed, I’ll permit him to stay on as long as you take full responsibility. But I want to make it clear that he is your apprentice. I want him working with you and not wandering about this ship doing who knows what. If you can’t accept that, then the both of you can leave.”

“Got it,” Cross said.

Admiral Daughton stared a second more. Color returned to his face and approached a scarlet hue before he brushed past Cross, his arms swishing at the sides of his coat. The steps thundered with his weight as he stomped up to the deck.

“You all right?” Cross asked.

Words failed Ikey. He had no clue as to what had transpired. He nodded.

“Good,” Cross said. “I’d hate to lose another shoveler.”

Ikey swallowed. He took a deep breath. A slight tremble took his hands, and he gripped the hammer behind himself.

Cross sighed and shook his head. “Come along, then. I guess you’ll be in the engine room for the foreseeable future.”