Arachnodactyl (19 page)

A
s he traversed the streets
, what to tell Rose escaped Ikey. It flitted down the street ahead of him, slipping between and dodging around the people out on afternoon business. After the disaster of the previous night, it might be a relief to both Rose and Cross to hear he was leaving. The harder thing to tell Rose would be about his replacement of Cross.

Ikey stopped in the street. A man brushed past him and forced Ikey to adjust his balance. He stepped towards the window of a storefront. His reflection stood between him and shelves of ointments and balms and tonics for sale. His dark reflection punched a human-shaped hole in the muted street-scene behind him, as if he wasn’t anything more than a portal, a passage between the inside and the outside. A door.

How had all this happened? When he stopped to think about it, it was positively ludicrous to put him in charge of the ship. It made no sense at all. Was Admiral Daughton attempting to show Cross up, as Cross had tried to show Ikey up? He shook his head. Unlikely. The admiral had no incentive to show up Cross. Except for pride, maybe? No. Money held Admiral Daughton’s interest. When he spoke to Ikey’s dad, he spoke not of pride or accomplishment, but money. It was what motivated him, and what he expected others to be motivated by.

For that matter, why had he offered so much for Ikey’s help, anyway? Five pounds to start. A pound a week. It was more than a trifle to pay a common laborer. That may have upset the admiral when he found Ikey in the crew quarters. It was money wasted.

No. There was something else. Something didn’t sit right. If the situation was a machine, the balance would throw everything off. The parts would wear themselves down. Grind. Break.

But then again, Ikey had raised the ship when Cross couldn’t. Perhaps Admiral Daughton saw the potential in Ikey when no one else could.

Ikey turned from his reflection and its brimming promises of smoothing wrinkles and boosting vitality. Across the river and above the town, the ancient ruins of Whitby Abbey stood like a callous worn onto the town by the passing of time. Sharp had spoken of it with pride, presenting it as something his town possessed and others didn’t and couldn’t get.

Had Rose visited it? Had she ever climbed the 99 stairs to the top of the valley and walked among the ruins? Had she laid hands upon the remaining stone walls? Were they any different to her touch than any other stone? How did time move for her if she could not step back and see the aggregate effects of it wear like lines on a face?

Ikey moved on. If he put Cross out of a job, what would become of Rose? It was rare for a blind woman to work outside of the home. And regardless of the numerous charitable organizations around town that advertised their causes with rallies and flyers, it seemed unlikely that Rose would accept their charity.

And what of Cross? He had a deep mean streak in him. How would he react? Would he take it out on Rose? Ikey’s dad would have. Without question.

Ikey slipped his hands into his pockets, took a deep breath, and tried to tamp down his mind. With the uncountable people teeming through the streets, one of them ought to have some answers to his questions. Or all of them thinking together. But that wasn’t how things were done. All of them were isolated and on their own tasks, their own minds. He tried to imagine a machine that operated like people—a machine that completed thousands of tasks that rarely had anything to do with each other. And as he plotted it out, the machine grew in size and scope until it filled buildings and overran fields. The work it produced delved into chaos. It collapsed under its own weight, its own force.

Disrupt the machinery.

If Ikey refused to take the position, or if he simply failed to produce the promised plans, then Admiral Daughton would have to reevaluate his decision to replace Cross.

Ikey stopped again. Before long, Cross would find out what had happened. Ikey set course for Turk’s Head.

At the pub, Ikey had no difficulty picking Cross out from the few men washed up at the bar like bits of driftwood. He was the longest, skinniest piece.

“Hello, Love,” Willa said from behind the bar. She pointed at Ikey and leaned towards Cross. “Looks like your shadow is back.”

Cross turned around. Upon sight of Ikey, he slapped his palm to his forehead and dragged it over the long expanse of his face. “Bloody Nora. What the hell is going on now?”

Ikey brushed through the cloud of alcohol fumes and sat on the stool beside Cross.

The barman stopped in front of Ikey. “What can I get you?”

Ikey held up his palms and shook his head.

“Get him a whiskey,” Cross said. He tilted over towards Ikey. “If you’re going to sit at a bar, you’re going to drink.”

The barman set a glass before him and poured an ounce of whiskey into it.

“Thanks,” Ikey said to the glass.

Cross placed his elbow on the bar, then planted his fist against his cheek. “You’re not drinking.”

Willa tsked. “Where’d you get the awful shiner, love?”

Ikey nudged his head in Cross’s direction.

Willa’s jaw dropped. She smacked Cross across the top of his head. “How could you!”

Cross leaned back out of Willa’s reach. “Oy! The little bugger popped me first.”

“Is that true?” Willa asked Ikey.

Ikey nodded and looked to the bar. “Yes.”

She smacked him across the head. Ikey ducked, shoulders drawn up against further blows.

“Serves you right, then! What the hell’d you go and hit him for? Don’t you know it ain’t proper to go about hitting people?”

“Yes.”

“Cut him some slack, Willa,” Cross said. He leaned forward and propped himself on his elbows. “It ain’t his fault. They ain’t got a lick of common decency out in The Dales.”

Willa smacked Cross upside the head again. “I can see why he popped you. And if you lay a hand on his pretty little face again, I swear to the Lord above, your balls will end up in the sausage grinder.”

“That’d be an improvement on the sausage,” Cross spat.

“You!” Willa huffed, then hurried off to see to the one customer at the only occupied table.

The barman leaned in toward Ikey. “Next time, be sure to use his height against him. When he throws the punch, duck and run forward. Get him in the gut, the knees, the groin. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” He winked and stood back up. A sneer crossed his face as he nodded at Cross.

Cross punched Ikey in the shoulder. He gripped the edge of the bar to keep himself from falling.

“Dammit, man! You’re at a bar. Drink.”

Ikey grabbed the glass and took a sip. His face curdled at the burn of the whiskey. It tasted far more toxic than Cross’s scotch.

Cross and the barman howled with laughter. To hell with Cross. But what kept Ikey perched atop the barstool was a determination to save Rose from suffering.

Once Cross slapped the bar a couple times and settled down to a chuckle, he asked Ikey what the hell he came and found him for.

“It’s the ship,” Ikey said.

Cross hung his head. “I can only imagine.”

“It flew.”

Cross squinted at Ikey. “It flew.”

Ikey nodded. “It was off the ground. All of it. The whole thing.”

“How far?”

“Several feet. There was no slack in the mooring ropes.”

Cross smiled, shook his head, and swallowed the last of his drink. “You’re messing with me. I don’t appreciate it.”

“No, it’s true. I had the crew unload everything they could carry. The lumber. Tools. Everything. And I set 14 lanterns to burning under the hydrolysis converter. The flames—”

Cross backhanded Ikey across the mouth. He flew off the stool and collapsed to the floor. His head rang off the wood.

“Dammit, Cross!” Willa cried. “What did I just tell you?”

“That’s enough,” the barman said, though Ikey couldn’t tell to whom he spoke.

Cross towered over Ikey. “You little shit! You lit lanterns underneath the converter? While it was bloody-well running?”

Ikey pushed himself onto his elbows. “It worked—”

“You could have blown the whole damned thing up and killed everyone inside! You buggering idiot! You daft, simpering fool! Don’t you know that thing is filled with flammable gas?”

“I didn’t blow it up.” Ikey staggered to his feet, his eyes locked on Cross, and the barman’s questionable advice kept in mind. “It worked. And Admiral Daughton saw it.”

The fight dropped like a cape from Cross’s shoulders.

Ikey ran his fingers over his upper lip. Despite the throbbing pain, no blood streaked his touch. “He wants me to draw up plans. Plans for an alternate design that doesn’t use open flame.”

Cross dropped down onto the bar stool. “You little shit. You set me up. I’d have expected something like this from Wendy. But you?”

Ikey grunted. “Set you up? Why’d you leave me in charge?”

Cross rubbed his forehead. “I wanted Wendy and the crew to give you a hard time. Show you that your britches aren’t as big as you like to think.”

Ikey swallowed, unsure of what to make of Cross’s comment.

“Admiral Daughton wants me to replace you,” Ikey said.

Cross’s hand dropped away from his face. “Best of luck to you, then. Keep an eye on Wendy. Can’t trust him any more than he can make use of that rubbish waistcoat. And Rob, you can trust that man with your life if you ask him about his kids.”

Cross turned away and asked for another drink.

It was not the reaction Ikey had expected. He rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs and gulped down a breath of air, his nose too congested to breathe through.

“I’m suppose to bring Admiral Daughton some plans tomorrow,” Ikey said. “For a new engine design. I won’t. I’ll say I couldn’t come up with anything.”

Cross slipped a half crown from his waistcoat and flipped it onto the bar. It birled in the dim light. He picked up his drink and looked back at Ikey. “Why would you do that?”

Ikey straightened his back. “If I can’t come up with the design, Admiral Daughton will give you a second chance. You can have your job back.”

Cross snickered over his drink, then sipped it before setting it back. “What makes you think I want a second chance? What makes you think I want the bloody job at all?”

Ikey rubbed his palms along his thigh again. “Rose.”

Cross sneered and shook his head. The barman suddenly found something interesting to examine under the bar.

“Rose? Rose. What the hell does Rose have to do with any of this? Is she on the crew now? You hiring her to be the crew pecker-holder?”

Ikey rushed forward, hands clenched into fists. Cross swept his arm off the bar and clocked Ikey upside the head. His momentum still carried him forward, and he crashed into Cross’s pointy knees. The wind knocked from him, Ikey slumped to the floor.

Cross grabbed Ikey by front of his shirt, hauled him up, and slammed his back against the bar. He towered over Ikey, hunched forward so that his bloodshot eyes and sour breath hovered over his face.

“I’ve had it with your shenanigans,” Cross said. “If you can’t behave any better than a common ruffian, you won’t be heading the crew for long. But it’s your bloody problem now. Get your things out of my house. When I get back there this evening, I expect to see no sign that you was ever there. Got it?”

Ikey nodded.

“Good.” Cross stepped back. He pulled Ikey to his feet and brushed imaginary dust off Ikey’s shoulders. “You want to finish your drink first? It’s paid for.”

Ikey slipped past Cross and towards the door.

“Willa,” Cross called out, “see what I put up with?”

Ikey was out the door before he heard Willa’s response.

O
utside the Turk’s Head
, Ikey’s fingers clutched at his hair and pulled. The urge to grunt strained at his teeth. If released, the grunt would rise to a scream and collar the attention of everyone on the street. A number of people cast sideways glances and gave him a wide berth. Others ignored him. Others stared. They watched Ikey as they strolled past, and their eyes and expressions roamed over him. The edges of their lips turned up and they gave slight nods to themselves as if Ikey’s anguished, unshaven face and black eye outside of the pub offered incontrovertible proof of a long-standing belief.

Ikey hurried away, fists jammed into pockets and his gaze ploughing through the stones beneath his feet. The judgment of others pressed against him; a thick smoke that worked its way into his clothes and skin.

The darkness of Cross’s house would be sorely missed. In his room at the hotel, he’d have thick curtains drawn against the light. He would blot out the world and its people. Bastards. Lunatics.

Ikey wished he had a coat to draw around himself, a collar to turn up and a hat to pull low over his head. He hurried on and thought of lying on the bed in the hotel, the light pushed back and barricaded.

By the time he reached Cross’s house, he had no clue as to what he might tell Rose. She might not want to hear a thing beyond the fact that he was leaving—kicked out by Cross. She might even be delighted to hear he had replaced Cross at the shipyard. Who knew? Cross’s reaction had certainly differed from what he had expected.

Ikey approached the house from the back alley. He hauled himself over the back wall. This time, he had no audience, and he dropped into the yard unnoticed. He let himself in to the workshop.

On the table sat a mechanical spider. Eight legs held its body off the table. The contents of the thing’s abdomen lay exposed. Ikey examined the intricate workings. Unlike the music boxes, there were definite gears and coils of spring inside like the works of a watch.

He picked the spider up. It covered his hand. He turned it over and found a small fob along the bottom of its abdomen. As he gave it a couple of twists, the spider’s legs worked back and forth in tandem, and a thin, tinny song leaked like salt from it.

Ikey gave the fob a few more twists and set the spider back down. It crawled along the tabletop and sang its trickling song. When it approached the edge of the table, Ikey snatched it up and held it until the the pent-up energy of the springs bled out through the legs. Finally, it rested still and quiet in his hands as if it had passed away.

He returned the spider to where he had found it. As he looked away, his eyes caught sight of a spider’s web in the corner of the room, strung above the pile of junk. In the center of the web, a large, brown spider waited.

Ikey looked at the mechanical version, then back to the spider.

“He doesn’t understand, either, does he?” Ikey asked the spider.

The spider neither answered nor moved as Ikey shoved aside a few boxes on the shelves. He pulled the mechanical arm out where he could examine it. He plucked the strings and bands and watched as it aped the movements of Cross’s wife—but the wife Cross saw. The one visible in light. The one he tried to understand by observation and replication. The one that Rose hated.

Ikey replaced the arm and removed what he needed from the tool chest under the table.

“A word of advice,” Ikey said to the spider, “don’t try to do him any favors.”

Ikey slipped out to the back door and lowered himself to his knees. Within a minute, the tumblers in the lock clicked and Ikey pulled his tools from the keyhole. He pushed the door open on its creaking hinges and stepped inside.

“Rose?” Ikey called out. He stepped through to the dining room. “Rose?”

“Ikey?” Rose called from the kitchen.

Ikey smiled, then recalled why he was there.

“It’s me.” He made his way through the dark. Each step was judged and whispered about by the music boxes. He tromped down the stairs, and at the count of 17, turned and faced the dark kitchen, black except for a crack of red light leaking from the stove.

“Dinner won’t be ready for a while yet,” Rose said.

“Cross will never love you. Not the real you. Not the one I know.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He doesn’t spend any time in the dark with you. He always has a lantern. Is that why you wear the veil? To be in the dark even around him?”

Rose set something down with a metallic clank. “What concern is it of yours?”

“I can’t stay here any longer.”

“I understand.”

“No,” Ikey said. “That’s not it. I mean, Cross is kicking me out. I’m going to stay at the hotel. Admiral Daughton has put me in charge. Of the ship. Instead of Cross.”

A slight knocking jogged across the room as Rose chopped something. Ikey inhaled. The scent of onion filled his nose.

“So Cross has kicked you out because you’re replacing him at the shipyard?”

“Yes. I tried to refuse. I tried to make a pact with Cross. I’m suppose to come up with some engine plans tonight. I told Cross I wouldn’t. That I’d tell Admiral Daughton I couldn’t do it. So then Admiral Daughton would have to hire Cross back.”

“Why would you do that?” Rose asked.

Ikey kicked his heel back until he felt the riser behind it. He sat on the step. “I didn’t want Cross to lose his job.”

“Cross gets what he deserves. Why should Admiral Daughton pay him to sit at Turk’s Head?”

Ikey sighed in exasperation. “What will you do if Cross can’t find work?”

The chopping stopped.

“What will I do? What concern is it of yours?”

“I cost Cross his job. I was… He tried to make a fool of me. So I wanted to show him. I made the ship lift up. To the end of its mooring ropes.”

“You lifted the ship?”

“Yes. But when Admiral Daughton saw it—I mean, I didn’t want Cross to lose his job. I only wanted to show him that I’m not as stupid as he thinks.”

“And what concern is it of yours what Cross thinks?”

Ikey laid his head down in his hands and pressed his palms into his eyes.

The chopping resumed. “If you lifted the ship, then you deserve the position. Congratulations. Cross had his chance.”

“But how will you get by if Cross can’t find more work? Sharp said there isn’t work to be had here what with the mines and the harbor and the proper shipyard all closed. He said there isn’t a thing here to be had for anyone other than fishers and chambermaids.”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Rose asked.

“Spell what out?”

Rose sighed. “Your concern would be touching if it wasn’t so misguided.”

Ikey sat up straight. “What do you mean?”

The chopping stopped again. A knife scraped across wood. “Pity will mask guilt, but only as a shrub masks the earth. If you earned Cross’s position, then you should have it. But you would give it up just to ease your own conscience and spin it into pity. The poor, blind, and disfigured Rose. What would the dear do without someone to save her?”

Ikey’s hands gripped his knees. “That’s not it,” he said.

The cutting board clunked to the countertop. A rhythmic and muffled clicking peppered the room, like a pot being stirred. “Then I’ll ask you again. What concern is it of yours whether Cross has work or not?”

Ikey wanted to ask how she would eat without Cross’s income, but the words stuck in his throat, caged by her accusation of pity. Everything he thought ran face-first into those same bars. Did he pity her?

Ikey took a deep breath. “Cross is kicking me out. Admiral Daughton is paying me a salary now and providing me lodgings at the hotel. I’ll never see you again, will I?”

The stirring stopped. “Is that why you tried to give your position back?”

Ikey laced his fingers together before him. “One of the reasons.”

“And the others?”

“How will you eat? How will you get coal?”

“People have lost jobs before.”

“Come away with me,” Ikey said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You can stay at the hotel with me. I’ll rent you your own room. We can put curtains up. Like these. We can make it dark and black so no one else can see either.”

The chopping resumed. “That’s quite an inappropriate request to make of a married woman.”

Ikey rubbed his hands over his face. They smelled of the iron picks he had handled to unlock the door.

“What will Cross do when he gets back?”

“I suspect more of the same. He’ll eat his dinner, then hide in the workshop and drink himself into a stupor.”

“One year, an illness swept through our coops and killed most of our hens. There weren’t so many that my uncle and I couldn’t take care of them all. This was before Uncle Michael’s accident. So my dad got a job working on a nearby farm.”

Ikey ran his hands through his hair. The tangles in it pulled at his scalp before letting go. “After a few weeks, he got fired. He didn’t say why, but he came back home with a swollen eye and a popped seam in his shirt. Uncle Michael yelled at him. Told him his family was depending on him, and he had let us down.”

The chopping slowed to a stop.

Ikey laced his fingers together again. “My dad and Uncle Michael got into a fight. In the barn. Because that’s where Uncle Michael had his workshop and his tools and where he spent all his time. And that’s where my dad found him. And…”

Ikey rubbed his shins.

“I was 12 years old at the time. And I picked up an axe. Off the nails in the wall. Because it was the biggest tool I could lay my hands on. I held it… ready to—I was going to take out my dad. He was beating the hell out of Uncle Michael. And I knew it wouldn’t stop there. Once he finished with Uncle Michael, he’d move on to me. Then my mum and my sister and my brothers. I wanted him to stop. I wanted to stop him. Right there. Help my uncle and my mum and everyone. If we… If we ganged up on him.

“So I stood there with an axe on my shoulder, watching as my uncle and dad tossed each other around and rolled on the ground. I was waiting for an opportunity. I’d have the opening, and I’d know when to deliver the blow.

“There was a lot of blood. It was on their faces. Theirs fists. Their shirts were splattered with it. And they kept going. Until finally Uncle Michael broke free and rolled away. He pulled a pitchfork off the wall. He pointed it at my dad, then nodded at me. He said—and flecks of blood flew off his lips—he said to look at me. Axe in my hands. Is that what he wanted for his son? To know violence like him?

“And my dad looked down at me. His face was a mess. And I just—”

Ikey swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I started bawling. Crying because I—the shame. And I hadn’t any idea what I had done. Just that it was wrong. It was so wrong. And I saw it in my dad’s swollen eyes and I knew I had betrayed him and Uncle Michael and everyone by picking up the axe, but I didn’t know how.

“And when Dad came for me, I was too stunned to react. I knew what I had done was wrong and I knew when I took my punishment quietly, it went easier. The more I screamed, the worse it was, so I clamped down on my tongue and closed my eyes and waited for it to pass like a storm that lashes and lashes and destroys everything but there is nothing you can do but hold on and wait it out.

“But all he did was take the axe from me. He plucked it out of my hands.”

Ikey pressed his palms against his eyes and thought of the cart. The unfeeling wood and iron. He drew another deep breath.

“There was a clatter. The sproing of tines as Uncle Michael dropped the pitchfork. Then I heard a grunt and a scream. When I opened my eyes, Uncle Michael lay on the ground, his hands clutching his hip, and his leg twisted funny, and Dad standing there, panting, the axe in his hands, the head resting on the ground. Backwards. He had struck him with the blunt side.”

Ikey shuddered. “Uncle Michael was saying something. Screaming. And it all lifted away like a fog because I could see nothing but his leg. The twist. His toes pointing off to the side like a doll’s leg. Like he was nothing more than rags. That there was nothing to any of us if we could be broken so easily. And I couldn’t take my eyes away from his toes. Even as my dad fell to his knees and grabbed me by the shoulders. He said it was an accident. He saw it. My uncle was trying to hurt me. Trying to get back at him. And I had done it. I had hit him with the axe but he’d tell everyone it was an accident. It’d be all right. It’d be all right if I stuck to his story.”

The music boxes whispered their songs as Rose crossed the kitchen. Her hand settled on his head, then drifted to his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Rose said. “That was unforgivable, what your father did.”

Ikey gripped Rose’s hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Not because of me.”

“Cross is not your dad. He has never raised a hand against me, and he wouldn’t dare.”

“But the things he says about you…”

Rose squeezed Ikey’s shoulder. “He’s a frustrated man. The world says he should live his life a certain way, but then it presents him with a different reality. That doesn’t excuse any untoward words spoken in spite, but you can either understand where he’s coming from and choose to be patient with him, or you can expect from him what he cannot give, and find yourself in constant disappointment, locked in a power struggle with a man whose greatest fear is not having the power to leave a legacy.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“I didn’t offer one.”

“Why do you stay? With him?”

Rose withdrew her hand and returned to the other side of the kitchen.

“This arrangement suits me, given the circumstances.”

Ikey rested his forearms on his knees. Weariness settled over him. Words felt weightier. They required greater effort to lift out of his throat and shove into the dark chasm he and Rose floated in. A lid was lifted off a pot and placed on the top of the stove. A knife scraped across a wooden cutting board. The darkness filled with a soft murmur of bubbling and the scent of chicken stock.

“It suits you?” Ikey asked. His words sounded larger to him now, and softer, mushy like water-logged wood. But they still dropped away like stone. He was surprised they didn’t crash to the floor and stir the music boxes.