The Clockwork Three (15 page)

“Would you mind getting some vegetables, dear?” she asked. “Some carrots and celery, an onion, and a few ripe tomatoes.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” Giuseppe said.

“Woodsman, if you would kindly butcher the meat.”

“Of course,” Pullman said.

Giuseppe took the basket and a knife out into the garden and gathered the vegetables Alice had asked for. It took a little while to realize that the carrots and onions were actually under the ground, but it felt good to move through the cultivated rows and patches, feeling the dirt, helping the old woman. Surely someone who cared as much about growing things as she appeared to was someone he could trust.

He went back inside, the basket full, and watched as Alice chopped and diced the vegetables along with some cloves of garlic. She pulled down herbs from her ceiling, smelled them, and sighed with pleasure. A short time later Pullman entered, carrying a board piled with slabs of pink meat. Alice cut the meat into chunks and tossed it into the kettle now steaming over the fire. She tore the herbs and dropped them in.

“We’ll just let that simmer for a spell before I add the vegetables,” she said, and took a seat next to them at the table. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me about yourself, dear. I noticed you have a fiddle.”

“Yes,” Giuseppe said, and he told her the same story he had related to Pullman.

“You poor thing,” Alice said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

It seemed as though that was just something adults said. Adults like Reverend Grey. But Giuseppe felt that they were saying it more to themselves, so they felt less guilty about doing nothing. But he did not blame them. What they could do for him, they had done.

“The soup smells delicious,” Giuseppe said.

“Just wait,” Alice said.

She rose from the table and went to the hearth, where she raked a layer of coals under a grill. She set a black iron skillet over the coals to
heat through, and spooned in a dollop of butter that sizzled. Next she dumped the vegetables into the skillet and added a scoop of flour. When the mixture had browned, she tipped the contents of the skillet into the kettle and stirred it all together.

“We’ll give that another hour or so,” she said.

“Would you play for us?” Pullman asked Giuseppe.

The request stopped him. Giuseppe felt something catch inside him like a fish on a hook. Against his will these two had snagged the part of him that darted away from everyone. He realized he wanted to play for them, but not for money. He went for his fiddle.

“What would you like to hear?” he asked as he tuned the instrument.

“Play that song you were playing this morning when I found you,” Pullman said.

Giuseppe took the bow and rubbed the first few notes from the strings and felt something different in the music than he had ever felt before. Or perhaps it was not in the music but in him.

Both members of his tiny audience closed their eyes, firelight turning their cheeks red as the cabin dimmed with evening. They listened and he played. The song had the same notes it always had, but they felt more honest in their expression. Giuseppe had always chosen music for how well it would fill his cap with coins. But given as a gift, the song became something even more than if it were played on the green violin.

He finished. He played another. And then a lively jig.

Pullman started tapping his toe to the rhythm. Then he rose from his chair and took Alice’s hands. He pulled her up and danced her around the small cabin, kicking his feet high and singing. Alice bobbed along with him, a delighted smile on her face, and watched the warden’s bouncing legs as if she had never seen anything like them before. They circled
Giuseppe and he picked up the meter, playing faster. He spun them around like tops, filled the cabin with enough music and joy to blow the roof off.

When the song ended, the dancers hurled apart. Alice slumped into a chair by Giuseppe, and Pullman sprawled wide on the bed, both of them breathing hard and laughing.

“My goodness,” Alice said. “You sly woodsman.”

Pullman sat up. “I don’t know what came over me. Seized by a mood, I guess. I just couldn’t stop my legs.”

“Well, I thank you. Both of you.” Alice dabbed at her brow with her apron and went to the kettle. “I wouldn’t care to count the years since I last danced like that.” She lifted the lid and peered inside. “It’s ready.”

She ladled bowls of turtle soup from the kettle, and Pullman brought them to the table one at a time. They all settled into their steaming dishes and ate. The stew was thick and rich, a velvety brown gravy full of vegetables and meat. Giuseppe had never tasted anything like it. The tender chunks of turtle fell apart in his mouth, and he finished the whole bowl before the others had eaten half of theirs.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and put his hands in his lap, looking from his empty dish to the kettle by the fire. Alice leaned toward him.

“You are welcome to eat as much as you like, dear.”

“Thank you.” Giuseppe hopped to the hearth and dished himself up another bowl. When that serving was gone, he had another, and before long, he felt something in his stomach he could not remember feeling for a very long time. He was full, sitting at a table with kind people who looked after him. He leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh.

After they had all finished, Pullman pushed himself away from the table.

“Well, I’d best be on my way,” the warden said.

“It worries me so when you travel in the dark,” Alice said.

“Nothing to fret about,” Pullman said. “Good night, Giuseppe.”

“Where are you going?” Giuseppe asked.

“My cabin. It’s not far. But don’t worry, Alice will take care of you.”

“That’s right,” Alice said.

Giuseppe bit his lip. “Will you come back?”

“I’ll try and stop by tomorrow,” Pullman said. “Get some sleep.”

They followed the warden outside into the gloaming. The garden had a stronger, sweeter fragrance at night than it did during the day, and fireflies had taken the place of bees among the plants. The moon dangled an image of itself in the pond like a fishing lure, and bullfrogs bellowed from the reeds and mud. Pullman grabbed the empty turtle shell and picked up a heavy bundle from the grass, the rest of the meat he had dressed and wrapped. He nodded and whistled off into the night.

Once he had disappeared from view, Alice sighed. “Come back inside, dear. Let’s get your bed made.”

Giuseppe followed her back in. She opened a chest at the foot of her bed and pulled out more blankets, which she arranged on the floor near the hearth. Giuseppe sat down among them, cross-legged, and watched Alice tidy up the room.

“Can I help?” he asked.

“Nonsense. You lie down now.”

Giuseppe did as he was told and stared into the fire. He watched the flames work over the wood, turning it black and then red before sifting it to ash. He listened to the crickets outside and heard Alice climb into
bed behind him. He felt contented and safe for the first time in so long. But that moment did not last. Deep memories rose up strong behind those freshly made that night, old memories of his parents, his brother. Marietta. No matter how wonderful it felt to be there, nestled in his blankets by the fire, this kind old woman was not his family, and her little cabin in the woods was not his home.

The Orphanage

F
REDERICK SKETCHED BY THE LIGHT OF A CANDLE NUB, HUDDLED
over a desk, the clockwork man stretched out on the worktable behind him. A pile of crumpled paper surrounded him like a snowdrift streaked with inky soot. He gripped the fountain pen hard enough to turn the tips of his fingers white and scratched out a line that ripped right through the paper. He put the pen down and stared at the gash in his design, right at the center of his clockwork head.

He could not make it work.

Babbage had offered him a window that had turned out to be nothing more than a crack in the wall, too small to fit through. Size was the problem. No matter how many designs and iterations, Frederick could not find a way to fit all the necessary clockwork within the nutshell of the head. It was like the automaton shepherd boy back at the guild hall. The movements would have to be relocated to the chest, which would mean tearing the clockwork man apart and starting over. Frederick grieved at that thought. The body was as perfect as he could make it, fluid and elegant and strong, with all the necessary connections converging at the neck.

He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. Pink sunlight spilled down the stairs from the shop above. He had spent another night awake at his
desk, the third in a row. The day after the opera, after talking with Hannah and Master Branch, he had put away thoughts of his mother and gone to work, and every night since then he had been at his desk. He stole naps as he could throughout the day, but felt fatigue sucking at his mind like an undertow.

He palmed the sketch, crumpled it in his hand, and tossed it to the floor, a damaged snowflake. He stood and plodded up the stairs, where he and Master Branch ate breakfast in silence. Afterward, the old man set him a list of tasks to accomplish in the shop that day, and Frederick approached them absently.

He finished the repair of a Black Forest piece whose cuckoo had lost its chirp, and replaced a worn-out balance spring in a silver mantel clock. He then cleaned the dust from a Congreve, allowing the steel ball to roll freely back and forth along its track, measuring time with its tilting. Frederick became lost in the up-and-down rhythm, the ball at play like a lonely boy working a seesaw by himself.

“Are you finished, lad?”

Frederick looked up. Master Branch stood in the doorway.

“What?” Frederick said.

“I asked if you were finished. Three times.”

“Oh. Yes, I’m finished.”

“Good. Come upstairs for supper.”

Supper already?
Frederick followed the clockmaker up to the apartment and sat down to a plate of sliced ham and potatoes mashed with butter. Frederick stabbed at the food with his fork, but never lifted any to his mouth. He noticed Master Branch watching him and forced himself to take a bite before the old man could comment.

“Is everything all right, Frederick?” the old man asked, anyway.

Frederick moved his potatoes around. “I’m fine, sir.”

“It does not seem that way to me. I don’t mean to be harsh with you, but your work has been very slow the past few days. And your eyes are red. Right now you look like you can barely stay upright. Are you sleeping?”

“Not well,” Frederick said.

“Why not?”

Frederick put his fork down. “I don’t know.”

Master Branch opened his mouth, closed it. He opened it again and held it that way as if hoping the words would fly in. “I would point out that these changes began on the very day you asked me about your mother.”

“They did?”

“Yes. Which leads me to think they are related.”

Frederick said nothing.

“What do you think of that?” Master Branch asked.

What did he think of that? The tiredness was because of his nocturnal work on the clockwork man. Not his mother. But then, he had only begun laboring through the night after the opera, after Hannah had asked him all those questions he could not answer.

“I don’t know what to think,” Frederick said.

“Well, it’s just a thought. I’m just saying that it would be understandable for thoughts of your mother to keep you awake, to distract you.”

Frederick knew it was not that. Babbage and the clockwork man had distracted him, and he realized now that was exactly why he had seized on them. It was the avoidance of thoughts about his mother that kept him awake. But how much longer could he avoid them?

“Perhaps,” said Master Branch, “it would help to confront whatever it is that’s bothering you. Learning her name, for example. If you’d like,
I’ll go to the orphanage with you, or even for you, to find out more about her.”

“Thank you, sir. But that won’t be necessary.”

“Are you sure? I truly believe it might help you.”

“What I mean is, I think I should go alone.”

“Oh.” Master Branch seemed to think about it. “If you are sure.”

“I am sure.”

“Very well.” The old man scooped the last bit of food together on his plate, scraping it clean to the last bite. “I believe I could make do without you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow
. There was weight to the word. It felt too soon. He was not ready. What little food Frederick had eaten turned to a roiling sludge in his belly. He swallowed and nodded.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

Frederick forced himself to consume the rest of his supper, now cold on his plate. He passed another night without sleep, but not down in his workroom. He lay awake on his cot behind the shop, staring at the ceiling, firelight from upstairs leaking between the floorboards like spilled honey.

How could he do this? How could he go back there? The thought of it turned him cold and set him trembling. The orphanage still gaped in his memory, a black sinkhole. If he got too close, he risked falling in, so he had always stayed as far away from it as he could. He could not face that place again, he could not face her. But what would it mean if he did not? His mind tossed back and forth throughout the night, resolved to go one moment, and frightened out of it the next. But his thoughts kept coming back to his mother, and he knew what he had to do.

He had to go back.
Tomorrow
. Right up to the edge of the pit, staring straight into a mouth without any teeth.

Throughout the night he formulated a plan. He thought about what he would ask, and how he would ask it. He would wear his new suit. She would see that he had become something now; he was an apprentice clockmaker deserving of respect. And as furious as he felt at the thought of her, he would have to maintain his composure and treat her with civility. He knew how cruel and vindictive Mrs. Treeless could be.

Frederick stood in the street, hands clenched at his sides, staring at the front door. His legs shook, and he felt his heartbeat up and down his torso, in his throat and ears. The orphanage and factory were smaller than he remembered, and he had expected them to appear sinister somehow. He watched them, paralyzed, for some sign of the old hag living inside, some shadow or mark of cruelty. But the corrugated iron roofs and common redbrick walls matched all the other factories marching down the road.

He gathered himself and looked down at his new clothes, feeling armored in them. He was safe. She could not hurt him now. Frederick lifted his chin and marched into the street, across it, and right up to the door. He placed his hand on the latch and held it there, poised for a moment while he took a deep breath. Then he opened it.

Inside was the dingy entryway through which he remembered leaving with Master Branch years ago. He had no memory of arriving through it with his mother. A faded rug covered a floor that would fill a bare foot with splinters, while a table sat against a wall wearing a coat of dust and an empty vase. A hallway ran off to the right in the direction of the mill and factory floor, while another led toward the dormitory. Next to
him, a staircase climbed to the ceiling and through an entry to the second floor. The orphanage office waited directly in front of him, fenced with paneled wood and panes of frosted glass.

Frederick walked up and rapped on the window. “Hello?”

Something creaked inside, the sound of a swivel chair. Then the glass split down the middle and slid open. A pimpled woman peered out at him, a look on her face as though Frederick had carried in a foul odor from the street.

“Can I help you?”

Frederick tried to harden his voice. “I’m here to see Mrs. Treeless.”

“She’s on the factory floor. State your business with Mrs. Treeless.”

“I would like to find out information about the relatives of one of the former children in her … care.”

The woman’s face remained passive. “You look familiar.”

He gave her his name. “I left a few years ago. I would like to know about my mother.”

The woman grumbled and went to a back corner. She opened a cabinet drawer and riffled through a row of files and papers. “I don’t see anything here.”

“What do you mean?”

The woman gave the cabinet another glance. “I don’t see your file.”

“Perhaps if I could speak with Mrs. Treeless —”

“Not without an appointment.”

“Please. It will only take a moment of her time.”

The woman shook her head.

“Then will you schedule an appointment for me?”

“I’ll let her know you stopped by. Come again tomorrow, and I’ll tell you if she’s agreed to see you.”

Frederick ground his teeth. He forced a tight smile and turned away. As he walked toward the front door, he heard the window slide shut behind him.

Outside on the street he walked down the block, peering now and then into the factory yard through gaps in the fence slats. Children scurried from the orphanage to the factory, and Frederick felt their fear of being late, that utter panic when the clock betrayed him by a minute. A cold wave of guilt trickled down his back for being safe on the other side of the fence, where the hours arrived without punishment.

A few steps later he came to a gate in the fence, locked by a loose chain. He tested the opening and thought it barely wide enough to slip through. He looked both ways down the street and squeezed inside. The edges were rough, and he felt a snag and heard a tearing sound behind him. After stumbling into the yard, he checked his new coat and found he had nearly ripped a pocket off.

He ran his fingers through his hair and looked up at the sky, the factory smokestacks spewing poisoned clouds. He could turn back. He could come again tomorrow with Master Branch. But she was in there right now, pacing, spewing, yelling. He squared his shoulders and set a determined course for the large factory doors.

As he drew nearer, the sound of the power looms chewed at his ears. He stepped inside the factory and recoiled from the overwhelming odor of sweat and filth and machine oil. He covered his nose and stared down the rows and rows of machinery on the floor, the struts and ropes and pulleys along the rafters, and the bolts of fabric racing up and down between them. Everything in the factory, every part of it, seemed to be in motion. Wheels spun, shuttles flew, children darted, while steam thunder shook the ground under it all.

How could he ever have been used to this? He looked around and saw a couple of foremen but no Mrs. Treeless. He moved close to the wall, and his eyes ranged down the long factory.

About a third of the way into the building, he saw Roger Tom. It had only been a few years, but the man looked as though something had defeated him. His shoulders sagged, and his neck bent like he had that millstone from the Bible hanging from it. He barked at the children around his feet but did not watch to see what effect his threats had, whether he was heeded or not. He just walked on.

And then Frederick saw her. She came behind Roger Tom, marching between the machinery and children, with eyes like two black wedges, eyes that cracked and broke asunder anything in her path. Frederick cowered in spite of his intent to stand his ground and became furious. At himself, and at her. He lurched forward and landed between Mrs. Treeless and Roger Tom, right in the old crone’s path. That brought her up, and it took but a moment for her to recognize him. She clutched her dog, a pathetic little thing now, mostly bald with clouded eyes. It did not move, and Frederick had the morbid thought that it might be dead.

“I saw you down on the pier,” she said. “And you saw me, too, didn’t you? You had that look. The same one you have now.” Her gaze mocked him, and she smiled when her eyes came to the ripped pocket of his coat. “What are you doing here, boy?”

“I came to ask you some questions,” Frederick said, his voice sounding weak among the machines.

“Let me guess. Your mother.”

Frederick swallowed. How did she know?

“You hear that, Roger Tom?” Mrs. Treeless called over Frederick’s shoulder. Frederick looked and saw the foreman standing there, a blank,
unreadable expression on his face. “He’s come to find out about his dearest mum,” she said.

“What was her name?” Frederick asked, his voice getting louder.

Mrs. Treeless smirked. “It’s always the mother. You think it’ll make you feel better. Well, I can tell you, boy, you were broken when you came to me, and you were broken when you left. All of you brats are damaged, and finding out why your mum left you all those years ago won’t mend a thing.” She laughed and brushed by him.