Spare and Found Parts (3 page)

The Cranes and Underwoods were the only families in this neck of the woods. The farther Ruby and Nell rode, the more the greenery gnawed at the path until they turned sharply into the glades cradling their homes. When they pulled up at the messy garden that marked the Crane house, they stopped together.

“Still coming to the Bayou tomorrow, aren't you?” Ruby asked, challenging Nell to say no.

“Yes, I suppose.”

Ruby made a theatrical, exaggerated noise. “Suppose! Try and muster up a little excitement for once, would you?”

Nell forced a smile that was all gritted teeth. “Yes. Yes, I'm coming.”

“The party's going to be wonderful. Wear something nice like; don't make a show of me all decked out for a funeral. I'll come for you at half six.” Ruby
clumsily shifted her bicycle back toward the path. “Stick that awful hand in a pot of boiling water before putting it on any of your shelves, too. Never know, it might start creeping around when you're not looking.”

Ruby stuck out her tongue and cycled away toward her house, just on the other side of a fat, twisted thicket of briars. Nell watched Ruby disappear, then led her bike to the house.

The Crane house stood with a shabby kind of magnificence on four thick pillars, twenty-odd feet from the ground. The wooden paneling on the walls was stained and dark; the windows were long and covered by blinds. If a wrong kind of magic touched it, it could walk away on its own, a clumsy creature of a house. It loomed. It was home.

It had started life as an elegant holiday home for the Starling family, visited rarely, planted deliberately in the last green lands of Black Water City. When Nell's willful mother decided she wanted to get out of the Pasture and live in the Pale, her parents reluctantly gave her the keys. As time peeled away that history, the house had taken Nell's father's name instead.

Nell checked the postbox. There a crisp, slim letter and a carefully wrapped brown package sat neatly
together, addressed to Miss Penelope Starling-Crane. She sighed. Definitely from Nan.

She kicked out the stand and left her bike in its place under the stairway to the porch. Kodak scampered up her arm and onto her shoulder as she took her satchel and trudged up the stairs, her head a thousand miles away.

Through the front door, down the hall, and up another rickety stairway she went, creaking a symphony, up to the crooked landing, to her bedroom.

Nell's room was uncommonly large, with high ceilings and a bay window looking out over the tangled mess that their back garden had become. Just beyond a ridge of full, low-dipping willows, lay a small lake. In the dark, it reflected the night sky so clearly that sometimes it looked as if the whole world ended at the bottom of the garden. The Pasture could begin here really—Nell was sure of it—but healed folk had marked a twenty-mile stretch of land outside the city as sick, too. That whole barren territory was marked as the Pale. The Pasture spanned the rest of the island, ruined and quiet but for the port town to the west. During the island's quarantine a partition that stood to this day had been built around it. Nell hadn't any desire to leave but knew that out there in the western reaches of the Pasture was the Library Complex, towers full of paper from before the Turn, the printed
Internet, being alphabetized, sorted, stored—away from civilian eyes.

Nell had asked Nan in her childhood if she could go to visit the Library buildings, but Nan had just laughed. “You've enough paper here to be contending with, girl, rather than need to see what's out there.”

Nell
did
occupy herself with an awful lot of paper. The walls of her sanctuary were covered in drawings and diagrams, proof of Nell's studies; detailed pencil-drawn charts of leaves, a dead mouse, how the kettle boils. Her father had been a distant mentor through her apprenticeship, but she worked hard, if alone.

She drew reams and reams and reams of things on long sheets of butcher paper: thin detailed lines, light gray shading, to scale and then bigger and bigger. Massive spiders stood watch with unmoving eyes from their homes on her papers. A single great rose almost burst into a flood of gray petals above her bed. By her wardrobe were a cluster of self-portraits and a constellation of drawings of her mother, facial comparison studies. They had the same full mouth, the same brown skin, the same nest of thick, untamable hair.

Nell dropped her satchel and sat down by the window at her drawing table to read the letter. It was heavy in her hands. She'd been expecting it. She hadn't replied to the last one or the one before. This table was
the quietest space in the whole room: a barren expanse but for a fat stack of similar envelopes in the corner, weighted down by a spare wrench. It was a stark plain in contrast with the mad cavern of her work desk, a quiet place to think. Nell ran her finger along the gum of the envelope and tore it open.

Penelope, dear.

Where has the time gone? Summer again already—the days are so long, a grand stretch in the evening. I'm sure you're as surprised as I am that contribution season is almost upon us. For so many families in the city this must be such an exciting time, the next generation of apprentices ready to contribute to the healing. Out here in the Pasture everyone is positively humming with curiosity about what the contributions will be. There is stone fruit on every altar, and my rituals have mostly taken place outdoors.

I would love to be as excited as my neighbors, but sadly I have a great deal of trepidation about your seeming unwillingness—or inability—to provide any progress reports on your project to either the Youth Council or to me.

This is not easy, but I must be stern in the face of your recent silence. I'm unsure what kind of point
you're trying to make. Is this a silent rebellion, or pure laziness, or a cry for help? I certainly hope it's not a deliberate attempt to cause Julian Crane—or me—any anxiety. If you believe there to be some charm or honor in working the stone woman site, then you are sorely mistaken.

You are from the line that drew the stone woman. Our Cora was a pioneer. She found a way to employ hundreds of people, to give them hope. You'll bring nothing but shame on us. My own mother and father didn't strive as hard as they did to remain whole and healthy just so the last in the Starling line could throw it all in. Cora had a rebellious streak, but she worked hard. You are simply not doing enough, Penelope.

I've outlined below the only options I see fit for you from here on in.

1. Produce a contribution of excellent standard by the Youth Council's appointed date.

2. Quickly, and without notable fuss, begin a courtship with an appropriate partner whose contribution aligns with your skillset. If you do pursue this avenue, alert me immediately so I can schedule a visit at the soonest possible juncture in order to approve your selection.

3. Pack up your belongings and relocate to my estate on the Pasture. I can formally employ you as my personal assistant, and you will remain preserved from stonework.

4. Continue to squander your time. In this case, I am unsure if Julian will permit your residence at the parkland house, and I will be ceasing any contact and withdrawing my support. You will not work on the stone site with my blessing.

I will write each choice on a nectarine and place them on the windowsill until the season changes. I hope the fourth rots last, child. This letter has taken me all day to write. I have been reading it aloud to myself over and over. These things need to be said before it is too late. I hope you will make the right decision. Cora would have wanted more for you than the scaffolding and the stoneyard. You could have a very good life out here in the Pasture if you wanted.

Write me soon. My love and blessings are with you.

Nan

T
he first thing is you are ten years old.

Your last summer in the Pasture is rose and tender until it is sour and wrong.

Your grandmother isn't much taller than you, all long linen jackets in coral and powder blue, all floral skirts. She smells like dry lavender, like aloe vera and safety. She wears rough crystals on her neck, on her fingers. She asks you questions and hangs your drawings around the mirror in her dressing chamber. You love her, and you love the halls of her country home, the high ceilings and the tall, airy corridors, the shiny marble floors, the lush carpets. There's nowhere in Black Water City like the Starling manor. Starling, like the iridescent black birds with bright white tips on the feathers on their breasts, like comets falling on an oily night sky. Starling like your mother.

You wish your chest would sound like a falling star. Instead,
tick, tick, tick,
all along the hallways. It bounces back at you from the shining surfaces. It echoes as if there were more of you. But there aren't more of you. Just one. Nan doesn't care.

You sit on the floor at her feet in the conservatory. All the world is green just past the glass walls, and the sky is spotless blue. Nothing is gray. This is the uncity. Nan is in the grand wicker chair, Kodak resting on the arm beside her. She braids your hair, the masses of it, with dexterity. Your ticking reverberates louder against the glass, and you are trying to ignore it, trying not to let it change the fabric of this quiet afternoon world. Nan doesn't mention it (Nan never mentions it), and you are thankful to her for this. You are thankful for her pearly painted nails on your scalp, knowing and gentle. She hums a sweetness, and it gets behind your eyes and you feel better. You can barely hear yourself when you focus on her voice.

You aren't sure if you believe in magic, but you understand why people say she is an oracle. You understand why they gather in the garden after dark and listen to her prayers. You understand why people come to her with lost objects, broken hearts. Her hands are in your hair, and you are not a clockwork girl; you're her grandchild, protected. The Pasture is endless, and the
city is nowhere in sight. You are warm in this prism. You could stay. You think about asking her if she'd let you. She might.

You are without lessons for the season, without Oliver Kelly on weekends and your father's watchful eye, his rules. You are without constant instruction or the fumes from the laboratory, the relentless stench of scorched metal. These things all fade into the concrete city beyond the horizon line of the Pasture.

You wish you could show Ruby these rolling fields, this clear sky. Even still, you are happy. A quiet, ordinary feeling. Nan doesn't say anything, you don't say anything, and the pair of you are linked in the afternoon hush.

Two of her maids bustle in just then, wheeling a gilded tea service. Healed, the pair of them, or just about; you can't spot any augmentations. The elder of the pair, Lynn, who's worked in the Starling house as long as you remember, begins to unload dainty porcelain towers of iced cakes, pink and white and mint. She transfers them to a glass table, low enough that neither you nor Nan has to bend out of your way to eat.

The other girl you've never seen before. She's a teenager, hair cropped close to a pixie face. You don't get too much of a look at her before she exclaims, “Oh!” and drops a teacup. It smashes empty on the tiles.
Her eyes are ice blue; you notice then—only because they're all over you.
Tick, tick, tick.
They're up and down the length of your scar, her pupils pinpoint, her mouth sour, open.

She pales a little, bubbles, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” blushing and stammering. She's still staring, your neck, your chest, a moment, two, then blusters away, leaving the air thick and awful. It is too bright in here. Your skin is too tight. Lynn quickly picks up the pieces of the cup and, producing another, seamlessly pours tea and places two cups at the bottom of the cake tree. But all you can see is the new girl's horror, her shaking hands.

“I am so, so sorry about this, Mrs. Starling,” Lynn trills. “I warned Annie about Miss Nell, but she just wasn't prepared. I'll ensure it doesn't happen again.”

Nan does not say a word, but her hands are motionless on your head. Lynn leaves the cornucopia of tiny cakes and proud-bellied teapot on the table, curtsies, and wheels the service away.

Tickticktick.

You are old enough now that when adults talk as though you were not there, you are not oblivious. Instead, you are furious, and the sound your body makes is the music of that fury. Nan's hands take up braiding again, and steam rises from the teacups.
Perhaps you would like, after all, to go back to the city. You are not like the people in the city, but you are more like them than like the folk here. City people never look scared of you.

“Not to worry. We'll get you some nice, colorful scarves,” coos Nan, and you say, “Thank you,” but you mean, “Why didn't you say anything?” and you mean, “Are you scared of me, too?”

You don't see the younger maid again, but her eyes are on you always. Her mouth, disgusted. You don't go to the Pasture the following summer. You miss it, the green world, until you don't. Until the gray world is a comfort.

You don't stop missing Nan, though. She sends scarves in brown paper packages, and you wear them around your throat, disguise your scar with softness, with cotton. They come every week. She stops asking you to visit. Eventually she starts telling you what to do.

F
ar outside the boundaries of Black Water City, a silent, guarded line lay between the Pale and the Pasture. The world changed there. The sick were raised and grew and contributed in the Pale; the healed lived and farmed and prayed in the tall grasslands of the Pasture. Nell cast a look over her shoulder at her tousled bed and thought for a moment about the fresh, expensive white sheets she'd sleep in at Nan's, about the quality of the light out there.

Until now Nan's weekly letters had been concerned, full of questions, but never formal. Never angry. Or cold. Nell traced her fingers over Nan's writing, something worse than guilt catching in her throat. She folded the paper over and placed it back into its envelope, then shuffled it anonymously into the bundle of correspondence. Her wrench, a sometime paperweight, sat in its place.

The package the letter had arrived with was wrapped with such precision that Nell took it apart with reverence, so as not to spoil the embossed paper patterned with tiny birds in flight. It contained a scarf, a wisteria print flecked with tiny sequins, newly woven, not salvaged. A scarf for going out. A fancy scarf, one for the mood lighting at the Bayou. A pretty disguise. Nell pulled it out to wrap around her shoulders, and something fell out of its shimmering folds: four batteries, shrink wrapped. A small square of paper flittered to the ground. Nell scooped it up. Nan again: “Make good use of these.”

A smile woke up in Nell. All right, Nan, she thought. I will.

She unpeeled the film and examined the batteries: wouldn't be much use for a big project, but for a small exercise, perfect.

Nell's work desk, oak and sturdy and far older than she was, was nestled in an alcove in the corner of her room, just a little away from her drawing table. It was part immaculate order and part utter chaos and looked as if it had bloomed out of the wall: a natural junkyard, just her size. There were jars full of tiny gears, clusters of springs, careful assortments of screws, collections of tape, coils of wires organized by size on the pegboard on the wall, their metal glinting in the lamplight. There was just enough room for Nell to spread her
elbows, a whole inventory of pieces and parts barely even an arm's length away. She knew the geography of this clockwork cove better than any place.

A tiny blowtorch was coupled neatly with an alarmingly toothy set of pliers, overseen by a grand family of hammers displayed on the headboard, all the way from the daintiest of cross-peen pins to a grand, fat joiner's mallet. Nell had never actually used that one; she didn't really deal in large constructions, but it was handy to have it there nonetheless. Hinges of gold and silver and stainless steel and some polluted with rust lay about the place like loose butterflies in a lush metal garden. This was Nell's playground, and her Nan, her furious Nan, had gifted her some new batteries to toy with.

Two sets of goggles hung like neighbors: one for general protection (Nell had torched her eyebrows off on more than one occasion) and the other equipped with adjustable lenses, allowing her to look more closely at smaller parts and mechanisms without having to use one hand for a magnifying glass. Though lupes and spyglasses were helpful, too; a bouquet of varying lenses stood in a vase in the corner.

Nell's gloves (latex, cotton, leather, steel tipped at the fingers) and welding masks all were hung in clusters, where she could change them in a moment as her projects dictated. Her lamp dangled from a thick red
cord from the ceiling, a pool of yellow enveloping her workshop.

Two pins, two wee ball bearings. Nell used tweezers to make sure they didn't up and roll away into the crevice between the desk and the wall (it ate more good parts than she could spare). One fresh battery. Some springs, a couple of cogs, three inches of wire. Two buttons painted to look like eyes. Twenty-five minutes of Nell's fingers pulling sense from the scrap, her whole mind empty but for the rising satisfaction of a tiny creature coming together at her hands. It was only a creature because of the eyes. Otherwise it was just a practical exercise in assembly and kinetic movement. She was running scales on the piano here, conjugating satisfying reams of verbs.

The eyes were a tiny flourish, a vibrato on the high note. They were a perfectly rolled
r
. They made the tiny machine more than the sum of its parts. They made it look alive as she connected the copper to the battery, as the tiny pin legs moved one after the other. Alive, rather than simply logic. Just cause and effect. Nell looked down at the bobbly little battery with legs, a mess with no casing or style. She could see how every part of him worked—how every part of
it
worked. It.

There was no magic here. Eyes didn't make it any
more than coils and wire and hinge and metal. Scrap. Practice. The exercise of the steel sprite wasn't enough for Nell anymore. She wanted more than button eyes. She knew that before the Turn machines could think.
That
. That was what she wanted.

The sprite skittered clumsily across her desk. A whispered word for a thinking machine was
computer
. The word sent thrills down Nell's spine. Forbidden, clever metal things.

Computers had brought about the end of the world. Black Water City was so grateful to have survived—even if it was still sick and wheezing—that the very mention of computers was blasphemy. They were brought to life by reams of numbers that conjured thought, and impulse, and memory out of nothing. Whole tomes of language in numbers and oblique symbols that, when lined up just right, could bring consciousness to steel. She longed for access to it, for how huge it could be.

Nell didn't think there was any reason to be afraid of numbers and letters. She'd been raised with a wrench in her hand; there wasn't a thing made of steel that could spook her. She spent her every waking hour listening to the ticking of a machine that kept her alive. She was sure that the rest of the folk in Black Water City were afraid only because they didn't ask
questions, because they believed what they were told. If all you'd ever heard about the history of your world was horror stories about gleaming boxes full of bad knowledge, of course you'd be afraid.

Nell knew better than this. Her father had told her that the metal boxes full of magic had been fine. It was people, frightened, angry people, that had brought the world down. Was it just the boxes, she often wondered, that they were so afraid of? How easy it is to stuff myth and horror into a box. Haunted slices of clever steel, something with hard lines, something cold.

Surely, if there was a way to make a computer look like something people trusted, there'd be a chance for a world full of clever machines again. Friendly-looking computers, full of knowledge, full of answers. Nell sighed. “Think of all we could know.”

Her wish fell dead in the air, onto the desk. She watched her tiny motion machine dance across the surface and tapped her fingernails against the wood, matching the rhythm it walked in. It was almost endearing, its little eyes blankly staring out. She turned it around, and it walked back toward her, a kind of sweetness to its almost dance.

She imagined it blinking up at her, moving of free will rather than rote.

“Hello,” she whispered. It tippled along, silent. Nell
wanted so much more, but all she had was this desk, these batteries. The analogue. The
not enough
.

She sighed, caught the sprite as it attempted to potter away toward a nest of springs. She disengaged the battery, and all movement dropped out of the little creature. A quiet, tiny friend, but not enough.

Kodak nipped at her ankles, not willing to be ignored much longer, then hopped into her lap. This was the specific kind of needy he always became at this time of night. The hunt, then dinner.

“A'right, a'right,” Nell conceded, placing the tiny exercise on a shelf above her tools where a space was open, ready, among a menagerie of twenty, thirty steel sprites just like him. None worthy of presentation, none a big deal. Essentially the shelf was full of toys. Nell sighed, looking up at them, knowing they were a waste of battery energy, knowing that her new little pal wasn't what Nan had intended Nell to use her gift for. She tucked Kodak under her arm, grabbed her satchel, and walked across her room, away from her cove, to the great bay window. The sprites were trinkets, just enough to satisfy the parts of her that wanted to bring things to life; what Nell needed was something much bigger. Black Water City needed something much bigger, too.

She swung the window wide and stepped out into the fresh night.