Legacy of the Clockwork Key (15 page)

The whirring started again and the earth around the center crystal began sinking. The hole opened wider as chunks of grass segmented into neat squares and dropped down. It looked as if the hole was slowly eating the earth, creating an entrance for the top of a stair while the crystal seemed to float above it, suspended by iron. I backed up, afraid that the opening would take the ground beneath my feet as well. Finally the whirring stopped, and I cautiously stepped to the edge of the hole.

Metal plates hung from a framework of vertical bars creating a floating spiral stair. I cautiously tested them out as I descended only a few steps into a great vacuous room. It
seemed the whole of the hill was hollow, and the area beneath it a remarkable dome, like the top of some great cathedral sunken beneath the ground.

Losing my courage, I came back up and found Will. “Are you coming?”

He shook his head even as he closed the gap between us and joined me on the stair. We climbed down in silence, partly because of my nerves, as the steps swayed and the cables holding them trembled. I also didn’t know what else to say. As we turned through the circles of steps and bars, drawing closer and closer to the deep center of the dome, one question was in the forefront of my mind. “What do you want of me?” I whispered.

Will sighed as we reached the floor of the cavernous room. “Think,” he said. “Stop and think.”

I hung my head as I hopped off the final step and looked around. Instead of dirt, the interior of the dome shone with polished black stone that glittered with tiny crystals embedded in the rock. It took me a moment to realize the crystals were a map of the stars. I could trace the constellations.

“What is this place?” I whispered as I gazed around. The cascade of light from the crystal lens above spilled down, showering a mirrored globe in the center of the structure. It
reflected a blanket of glittering light throughout the room. The speckled light seemed to dance, bouncing off mirrors that ringed the outer edge of the dome.

The light played everywhere yet nowhere at once, creating a million pinpoints of light and making the crystals shine more brilliantly than their nightly counterparts. Standing at the center of it made me feel as if I’d been set adrift in a sea of enchanted starlight.

“We haven’t long before we lose the sun,” Will stated. Did he even see where we were? It was amazing. The coach seemed a toy wagon compared to this.

Reluctantly, I dragged my gaze from the crystal stars. I turned around, then started, jumping backward in shock. A man was slumped against the wall, his head hanging. I couldn’t see his face, only a dapper hat and dusty coat.

“Is he dead?” I gasped, as Will stepped in front of me. He crept closer to the man.

“No, it’s not a man at all. It’s a machine.” He took my hand and led me forward, but my fright had hardly abated. “Look.”

I peeked around him. The man’s skin was indeed brass, jointed so he looked a bit like a golden suit of armor in a hat and well-cut coat. He held a ten-inch square plate in each
hand, their faces covered with interlocking gears.

“Those must be parts of the lock from Pricket’s letter,” I whispered. “He said they had broken it apart and hid it within the Amusements.”

Will reached out to take one, but he couldn’t pull it from the automaton’s hands. “He won’t let go.”

I eased forward. Along the lapel of his coat, just above his heart, I spotted the flower medallion.

I fitted the key into the automaton with a growing sense of trepidation. Never again would I take an Amusement for granted. As I pressed the button, I took a step back. The man trembled, lifted his head, then blinked open dark eyes and looked at me.

I took a second step back and felt Will’s hand, strong and reassuring on my shoulder. The golden man opened his mouth and began to sing.

The notes of grandfather’s song rang out, sung by a voice eerily similar to my Papa’s, but it wasn’t the melody. It was as if the clockwork man sang a second part, similar, but not the same. At first it confused me. I started to hum, following the rhythm. To my amazement, the notes blended seamlessly.

It was the harmony.

I joined him, singing the melody as loudly and clearly as
I could. Our voices merged, ringing through the hall until the cords holding the stairs resonated, adding a peculiar harmonic to our song. I felt as if I were singing with Papa. My emotion swelled and nearly choked me, but I continued to sing.

As the notes soared through the room, the fingers of the clockwork man’s hands slowly opened. Will took the first plate, then the second.

The automaton smiled, then his eyes closed and his head drooped down to his chest once more. I marveled at the wonder of the mechanical man, feeling a sense of loss now that I could only hear the echo of his voice in the chamber.

“Come on, Meg,” Will urged.

I hesitated, not wanting to leave the amazing clockwork man in the dark.

“Meg.” Will’s voice dropped and I knew I had to leave. He was right. I shouldn’t endanger him by lingering. I pressed a kiss to my fingertips and touched the clockwork man’s flower medallion then dashed after Will up the hanging stairs.

HALFWAY UP THE STAIRS, THE LIGHT DIMMED. I FELT A
tremble in the strands holding the stairs aloft. Will’s foot slipped, and he gripped the thick cords as the whole stair swayed ominously.

“Hurry!” I clambered up behind him. The stairs shook, then slowly began to rise. I clung to the spindles, praying I wouldn’t fall to my death. I tried not to look down as we struggled toward the circle of sky above us.

We burst from the stair and tumbled across the grass.

“Hold on,” I warned as Will threw an arm over my back and ducked his head. The lenses retreated back into the iron
beams, then the tops of the metal arches rose up once more into towering pillars.

The ground shook with violent force as the pillars receded back under the hill. The patches of earth and grass replaced themselves, and the stone altar rose back out of the ground.

All fell quiet again, though I could have sworn the ground continued to move. Realizing it was the trembling of my own body, I lifted my head and looked around. Except for the rumpled-looking grasses, there was no sign that the great iron arches had ever existed.

Will offered me a hand. His expression held no lingering anger, but I couldn’t believe he had either forgiven or forgotten the harsh criticism he had inflicted upon me.

I placed my hand in his and he steadied me until I found my feet. The sensation of the ground moving only intensified. His gaze drifted over me, dark and mysterious as it had always been. I didn’t like being on unsteady ground.

I walked away from him and picked the plates up from where he had left them in the grass, then I carried them back down the hill without a word. I reached the coach to find Lucinda sitting on the floor, swimming in a pile of tumblers.

She glanced at the plates in my hands. “What did you find?”

“They look like they might be parts of the lock Simon mentioned in his letter,” I said as I handed them to her.

“I never dealt closely with locks,” she said. “I wish there were someone who could tell us more.”

“What are all these?” I asked as I tried to find room for my toes amidst the tumblers.

“His Grace recorded tumblers for all the recent Amusements. I found them under the bench.”

I gathered a few of the bumpy cylinders and inspected them. On one side would be various estates throughout the countryside, but the other side had been marked the same on each tumbler.

Chadwick Hall
.

“What is Chadwick Hall?” I asked as Will climbed up on the footboard.

“It’s His Grace’s country estate.” Lucinda seemed concerned. “I was hoping there’d be one that could take us back to London.”

Without a regular carriage of any sort, we’d either have to drive the coach to London ourselves, or trust our feet. Considering we were miles from the nearest habitable shack, I felt inclined to stay near the coach.

“If we head southeast we’ll find London.” Will pushed
past me into the coach and took a seat on the driver’s stool. “Or we can turn the original tumbler back around.”

“But we can’t exactly tour the streets of London in this,” I reminded him with a wave of my hand. “Whoever intends to murder me might find it conspicuous.”

Will crossed his arms and scowled. “What do you suggest then?”

“Is the duke trustworthy?” I asked, helping Lucinda onto the bench. I lifted her injured ankle onto the velvet and took a seat on the floor beside her. “He had to be in on the conspiracy to hide the pieces of the lock, or he wouldn’t have hidden his coach.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know whom to trust. I haven’t heard anything about the duke since Simon’s death. He might be in hiding like the others, but even if the hall is abandoned, I know a way in.” She sat straighter.

I looked through the tumblers until I found the one marked for Gearhenge and Chadwick Hall. I held it out to Will, but he seemed skeptical.

“Once we are at Chadwick Hall, the tumblers will be able to take us anywhere we need to go.” I don’t know why I felt I had to justify the decision to call upon the duke, but I needed him to know I was thinking this through and not acting rashly.

“We haven’t been traveling quickly. We could have been easily followed,” he reminded me. “Especially if the farmer we passed starts telling stories.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” I said. I felt a creeping apprehension grip my neck and shoulders. “There’s no other way.”

Will looked me deeply in the eye, then at the tumbler.

“How convenient. I suppose it’s decided then.” Will didn’t bother to hide the edge of bitterness in his voice as he held out his hand. I placed the tumbler in it. He took a moment to examine it carefully before fitting the cylinder in the controls and lowering the arm.

He wound the coach, then started us off again. Relief poured through me as we rumbled along, the motion soothing after the turmoil of the afternoon. I didn’t know what to do about Will, or how to regain his trust. I found myself wondering if I had ever earned it to begin with.

“Tell me all about the Amusement,” Lucinda whispered, pulling me away from my darker thoughts. In the fading light she examined one of the plates we had retrieved. “Was it amazing?”

I told her about the crystals and the stair, the lights shining in the center of the hill and the clockwork man we had found there. She hung on every word.

“I wish I could have seen it.” Lucinda sighed, looking out the window at the hills as if any one of them could be hiding a cavern of stars. “It must have been breathtaking.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “It was.”

She drew her lips into a thin line as she watched the sun splash color over the clouds in the west.

The light died, and Will lit a lamp in the corner. The firelight caught in his dark hair and made his slightly tanned skin glow. He nodded to Lucinda, then caught me staring. Embarrassed, I focused on my dirty and torn fingernails as he took his seat.

My unease returned. “I didn’t mean for you to be hurt,” I said without looking up at Lucinda. I didn’t want to see the terrible inequality between us. Lucinda was my better in every way. I couldn’t help how I felt about her and Will, but I did feel sorry that she had been injured.

Lucinda smiled and placed a hand on my arm, the clean edges of her nails glowing like tiny moons. “I know. Someday we can come here again, and you can show me the chamber beneath the hill. We can bring a picnic.”

“And wax for our ears,” I added, reminding myself that she had only ever offered me kindness and that I should return it.

Lucinda laughed, then her expression became very serious. “Thank you, Meg.”

Her words surprised me since I had done nothing to deserve them. “You’re thanking me for injuring your ankle, destroying your carriage, and ruining your dress?” If she had any idea of the ugly thoughts in my mind, she would curse me for a year.

She offered me a wistful smile that seemed to show more in her eyes than on her lips. “Thank you for finding me. I think about Simon and our . . .” She paused, her voice catching. “Our life together, every minute of every day. I still have not stopped thinking about him, but today what I thought more than anything was that he would have loved this. It has made me remember him fondly.”

I squeezed her hand then let my head rest against the wall of the coach. In that moment, I wanted Lucinda as a friend. I had to find a way to push my jealousy aside. Exhausted, I drifted off, my dreams filled with swirling speckles of light and a man made of shining brass.

• • •

“Meg, wake up.”

My shoulder shook and my eyes snapped open. Will’s coat covered my chest and lap, while Lucinda slept curled
on her side on the velvet bench like a princess from a fairy tale.

“What’s going on?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My hands lingered on the coat as I pulled it off me. The cold night air rushed in, and I suddenly wished to burrow under the warmth of the coat and remain there all night. The dim light of the small lamp in the coach cast the world beyond the windows in inky black.

“We’ve stopped.” Will pulled a knife from his boot. Light flickered along the blade.

“Heaven’s mercy, what do you intend to do with that?” I scooted back against the side of the coach.

“There’re no lights. I don’t think anyone’s here, but we have to be careful.” He took the pistol out as well, considered it against the knife, and returned his knife to his boot. Will opened the door and stepped down onto the footboard.

I was beginning to think perhaps Will was a bit too careful. It was one thing to be prepared, but such a show of force might not endear us to the duke. Still, I shrugged off his coat and climbed out of the coach.

My body ached, especially my back and legs. I had to fight the urge to hunch. My boot hit groomed stone. We were on some sort of drive. If only the moon were a bit fuller. We
needed the light. The lamp inside the coach was fixed to the wall, and it did little to help us outside.