Clockwork Twist : Missing (2 page)

Hyde Park always seemed to bring a bit more blue out of the London sky, like an oasis in a colorless world. Wide swaths of green grass rolled endlessly beside long walking paths. Pots of bright posies and daisies stood like sentries beside fashionably visible benches. Stately forests sprang up at the edges, to shade the promenading ladies from the thin sunlight.

Pale, respectable women in billowing dresses of cotton, satin, and lace strolled aimlessly under their frilly parasols. Gentlemen in black jackets and top hats marched to the sharp rhythm of their own walking sticks. Children forgot all propriety as they ran free in the somewhat warm light and moist grass—much to the frustration of their governesses.

“But aren’t you
from
here?” Jonas asked with far too much glee in his voice, when Twist admitted that he wasn’t actually sure where the fountain, where Arabel and Myra were to meet them, actually was.

“I don’t know what you’re implying, but I never lived in a park,” Twist shot back quickly. “Besides, I hate public places. You know that.”

“What did you ever do without me?” Jonas asked wistfully as he led the way to the fountain.

“Yes, yes…which way is it then, Magellan?” Twist asked through a sigh as they came to a crossroads through the grass.

Jonas turned to gesture down the correct path, but his words stuck in his throat. At the other end of his gaze stood Myra, with all the pride that was due to a princess. Her copper skin was polished to a brilliant shine, but her slight, curvy form was now wrapped in a long, elegant dress of gray cotton and pink lace, of a style that perfectly matched the English ladies strolling in the park. The bodice was tight to her slender clockwork waist, but the skirts and bustle billowed out like a waterfall. There was a string of pearls at her throat, and a large pearl set at each ear. Her maroon-colored, metallic hair was styled into perfect rolling curls that clustered in a swirl at the base of her neck, under a tiny pink bonnet with a pile of gray silk roses artfully placed to one side over her jewel-blue eyes. The pink lace parasol completed the outfit dashingly.

Arabel walked toward Twist and Jonas in a new emerald bodice, worn under her long brown jacket, with a new short, black, silk skirt over her tight trousers and tall, shining, brown-leather riding boots. Her long blond hair now tumbled over her shoulders in loose, glistening, freshly styled curls. Although she walked proudly in her own right, it was Myra who had stopped both Jonas and Twist dead in their tracks. When Myra turned and saw Twist’s look of utter astonishment, her copper face bloomed into a smile as bright as the sun should have been.

“Well?” Arabel asked as the two pairs met on the walkway. “What do you think, Twist?”

Myra turned herself to show off the huge, pink silk bow that sat on the soft, gray cotton bustle, and she smiled at Twist with a decidedly playful gleam in her eyes. Jonas crossed his arms and leaned back to survey the image before he gave an admiring whistle. Arabel swatted at him with the back of her hand, but Myra only giggled and looked expectantly to Twist.

“Do I look like an English lady?” she asked him brightly, clasping together her metal hands in their white-lace gloves.

It took Twist a few tries to get a sound past his lips. “Yes, you do,” he said as he struggled with the perfection of the illusion. “You look splendid, my dear,” he managed finally, pulling out a smile.

Myra gave an elated squeak and hopped as she moved quickly to stand beside him, wrapping her arm through his.

“Let’s take a stroll,” she said, as if it were the most exotic of pleasures. “Arabel told me about strolls. Apparently, English women take them all the time.”

As Twist acquiesced, Myra spoke quickly in bright notes, telling him of all the wonders that one could see in London shops, while she walked beside him in a cloud of pure pride and delight. Jonas shrugged and offered his sister his arm as well. She accepted with a grin, and the two pairs turned to stroll along the paths, through the seas of lush, damp grass. Twist listened less to Myra’s words and more to the happiness and innocence that ran rampantly through her clockwork form. Her chilly metal fingers warmed slowly against his arm, while his Sight washed his attention in her every delight.

As they continued along the banks of a wide, green pond, the sky began to darken. In a moment, the sound of heavy raindrops crept over the damp ground behind them. The swans that had been paddling about happily on the pond took to the sky with aggravated cries, while promenading ladies shrieked and hurried primly to shelter. The suddenness of the heavy rain surprised even Twist.

“Shall we make a break for it, then?” he asked, already hurrying his pace as the curtain of rain began to close on them, so thick that its border was clearly visible.

“I saw a tea shop over there,” Arabel said, pointing to the nearest park exit.

“Perfect!” Myra said brightly as they all began to run. “Twist loves tea.”

“Grand. Can we hurry up, then?” Jonas said shortly, rushing away from the advancing storm.

They all broke into a run, but the weather quickly caught up with them. A few moments later, Twist and his companions were seated at a table in a little tea shop, with some extra napkins. Glancing about, Twist spotted many other soggy patrons at the tables around them. At second look, the tea shop seemed anything but trendy to Twist. He supposed that the storm must be doubling its daily business.

The flowery wallpaper was pink and gold, and all of the wooden furniture was painted a bland white. The gauzy green curtains blocked the rest of the sunlight, while amber gaslight poured out of cherub-shaped sconces, over murky oil paintings of indistinct fields and farms. There was no grace or elegance to anything in sight, giving the place a crowded, gaudy, and decidedly cheap appearance.

“This place is ghastly,” Jonas said as he placed his dark goggles snugly over his eyes.

“I think it’s cozy,” Arabel said brightly.

“No, it’s ghastly,” Twist said, staring uncertainly at a rather dull-looking brown cow in one of the paintings.

“Oh look!” Myra said suddenly, pointing to an item on the lace-rimmed menu. “They have your favorite, darling,” she said happily to Twist.

“Dear, this is London,” Twist said gently to her, having read the item name. “Everyone sells Darjeeling.”

“What a wonderful city,” Myra said wistfully.

“I miss Cuba,” Jonas said, inspecting a golden teaspoon with his fingers. “There weren’t any ghastly tea shops in Cuba. Does this spoon seriously have a kitten on the end of it?” he asked, holding it up for Twist to see for him.

“I’m afraid so,” he answered gravely.

Arabel rolled her eyes. “Men…” she muttered under her breath. “No taste whatsoever.”

Twist readied a retort in defense of his gender, but his words were stalled as his gaze caught on the figure that had just walked in through the door. Tall, well built, and statuesque, with imposing confidence, the man swept his very light brown—almost golden—eyes slowly across the room. The host who came to seat him approached hesitantly. The man didn’t answer but only continued to scan the room. Although his vaguely Western features suggested his age as only approaching his forties, the man’s loose, chin-length hair was a bright-silver color.

His nearly golden eyes found Twist and held, staring at him with the calm intensity of a panther. Twist felt his heart pound quickly in his chest, and a chill broke over his skin as he stared back, as helpless and startled as a fawn. Jonas turned to him with a blind frown.

“What’s wrong?”

“What?” The moment of distraction seemed to break the spell. When Twist turned to Jonas, he was surprised to find his breath short and his heart still pounding.

“What’s going on?” Jonas asked, slipping his goggles off to glance around them quickly. “Are we in trouble?”

“Trouble?” Arabel asked. Myra looked up at Twist curiously. Twist reached up to the back of his neck absently as he felt a tiny spark of foreign anxiety tingle to life.

“No, no, it’s just…” Twist looked back to the door, but the strange man was gone. Twist turned quickly to scan the rest of the tea shop, but he couldn’t find the man anywhere. “It’s nothing.”

Jonas caught his gaze, looking at him seriously with purple eyes. “It felt like you’d seen a ghost,” he said carefully.

“It’s nothing,” Twist said again, forcing certainty into his words.

Jonas narrowed his eyes, which took on a deeper hue.

“Just leave it,” Twist snapped, turning his own eyes away. “I thought I saw something, but it was nothing.” Jonas gave a low sigh and put his goggles back on. Twist gave him a smile, forcing his own heart to lighten. Jonas seemed to sense it instantly and gave Twist an acknowledging nod.

“You two are very odd,” Arabel said, watching them with a worried expression.

“But we’ve got the right number of fingers,” Jonas mentioned quickly. “You can’t fault us on that.”

Twist laughed softly, while Arabel seemed highly confused. Myra gave a long-suffering sigh. When the waitress appeared, Myra instantly ordered the Darjeeling. The waitress stared at Myra’s shining metal face for a long moment before nodding and hurrying off. The conversation picked up again, returning to the joys of London shopping, until the waitress returned with their order. Arabel picked out one of the cups and filled it with the fragrant, deep-orange tea. Then Myra took the pot, serving Twist and Jonas.

“So, where are we planning to go next?” Twist asked as he sipped at his tea.

“Good question,” Jonas said, stirring sugar into his cup.

“Uncle Howell found a lead on a Roman treasure trove that was lost in the Mediterranean back before the fall of the empire,” Arabel mentioned brightly. “He’s thinking to ask Bruno to lend us his submersible.”

“Bruno?” Jonas asked derisively. “The big guy who always smells of salmon and onions?”

“Oh, he doesn’t smell that bad,” Arabel said with a sigh. “Besides, we’d just be using his sub. He’s getting older now. He doesn’t go out to sea much anymore.”

“I’ll bet his sub smells of salmon and onions too,” Jonas muttered, taking a sip of his tea.

“Oh, you!” Arabel snapped, tossing a sugar lump at him.

Thanks to his blinded vision, the dense nugget of sugar struck Jonas square on the shoulder, making him jump. He let out a yelp of surprise and reached for the sugar bowl to retaliate. Arabel laughed brightly as she held her arms up to protect herself. Myra giggled to watch them and cheered when Jonas scored a point, striking Arabel on the elbow. Twist shook his head, smiling softly, and tried to keep himself out of the fray.

“Excuse me,” a deep, clear voice asked from behind Twist and Jonas. Twist nearly leaped out of his chair when he saw the strange, golden-eyed man standing so near behind them. Twist’s heart thundered once again, and every fiber of his being screamed at him to run. The man glanced at Twist with a cold disinterest that pinned him still in his seat before looking back to Jonas.

“Hello,” Arabel uttered stiffly, with obvious surprise. Her mirth had vanished completely as she looked at the man with a slightly fearful fascination. Myra also stared up at him with wide eyes.

“Are you Jonas Davis, the sky pirate?” the man asked.

“Who wants to know?” Jonas asked back, turning to look over his shoulder with covered eyes. Twist knew Jonas could feel his sudden fear, but Jonas showed no signs of fear himself.

The man looked to Twist. “Is he Jonas Davis?” he asked, his voice still sounding light.

The moment he heard the question, Twist felt a powerful and undeniable compulsion to respond with the truth. He managed to keep his mouth closed, but his head slipped into a shallow nod that he was helpless to stop. The man smiled slightly and put a hand on Jonas’s shoulder.

Suddenly, the whole world flashed a blinding, burning white.

Twist’s ears popped, as if from a sudden pressure change. He tried to move, to reach out, but his limbs wouldn’t respond. Then, in the briefest instant, everything was completely normal once again, as if nothing had happened at all.

Twist jerked when his body responded to his orders again, and he looked around at the shop in total bewilderment. No one else seemed perturbed in the least. The man had vanished again. Everyone was still sitting calmly, talking together and sipping at their tea. For a moment, Twist wondered if it had happened only to him—perhaps a strange flash of the future, like he sometimes experienced in times of danger—but something in the air wasn’t as it should have been. Something was very wrong.

“What was that?” Arabel asked.

“You saw it too?” Twist replied instantly.

“Saw what?” Arabel looked at him curiously. “You just jerked like something bit you. Are you all right?”

Twist frowned at her while his thoughts fought to make sense of themselves. He turned to ask Jonas if he’d seen the flash, but Jonas wasn’t there. His chair wasn’t sitting at the table anymore; there was no setting laid out for him. The cup of tea that Myra had poured for him was gone. Every sign of him had vanished. The nagging flaw in the world instantly revealed itself at the same moment. The familiar warmth at the back of his neck, the effect of Jonas’s presence on his Sight, that subtle second heartbeat, was gone.

“Where’s Jonas?” Twist asked, searching the shop for him. He lifted the tablecloth to see nothing but knees and boots beneath.

“Who?” Arabel asked.

A wave of icy terror rushed through Twist’s body so fast that it left him breathless and trembling. “Your brother,” he said, forcing his voice to steady as he stared at her in horror.

She only frowned at him, confused.

“Twist?” Myra asked gently, laying her hand on his arm. “Darling, are you all right?”

“Where’s Jonas?” he asked her desperately, taking her metal hand in his own.

“I don’t know who that is,” she said, half in sorrow and half in fear.

“No no no no no this can’t be happening,” Twist said in a single, shuddering breath. He closed his eyes and forced his mind to steady. This was ridiculous. Of course Jonas existed. He must have just gone somewhere in that strange, flashing moment. Arabel and Myra were playing a game. A cruel, cruel game.

“Seriously, what’s going on?” Arabel asked, leaning forward over the table to speak to Twist. “Why are you so upset?”

“This isn’t funny,” Twist said, opening his eyes to look at her. She flinched under the intensity of his chilling, blue gaze. “Where has your brother gone?”

“I don’t have a brother,” Arabel said, losing patience. “What are you playing at?”

“Your twin brother,” Twist pressed on. “Jonas Zephir Davis. He has your eyes, but you never see them because he always wears those blacked-out goggles to keep his Sight in check. He can see the future sometimes, but he usually just sees death, so he always watches the sky. I’m the only one he can look at without fear, and he’s the only living person in the world I can touch.” Twist gasped, taking in a breath just to stop the torrent of words from raging out of him.

The absence of Jonas’s softly buzzing warmth on the back of his neck was growing into a chill. Twist’s mind swam, thrashing about blindly for a foothold as if he were lost without gravity, drowning in pure, empty fear. Arabel was speaking, but her words didn’t reach him. Myra’s voice sounded scared now, but Twist couldn’t understand her either. Nothing made sense. Everything in the world was wrong. He clapped both hands onto the back of his neck and closed his eyes, pulling at his own Sight with all he had.

When he’d been separated from Jonas before, he could always find him if he reached deep enough into his own senses, to follow that familiar buzz like a trail. He dug and dug, until his head began to hurt, he felt dizzy, and his stomach began to get confused as well, but he held on. There had to be something, some lingering shadow of Jonas’s spirit.

There, in the very deepest part of himself, Twist found a faint, miniscule, radiant warm mote. It was so small and indistinct that clinging to it was almost impossible, but Twist hung on for as long as he could. It wasn’t a memory, and it wasn’t imagined. He could feel Jonas’s heartbeat in that tiny, glowing instance. He was still alive, and he bloody well still existed. He was just impossibly far way. He could have been on the other side of the world—or even farther.

Myra’s voice called to him, sounding terrified. Twist fought his way back out of his own mind and opened his eyes to find that he’d fallen off his chair at some point and was now lying curled up on the floor of the ghastly tea shop, in a ring of concerned-looking patrons and staff. He tried to push himself up, but his strength had left him.

“Sweet heavens, what’s the matter?” Arabel asked, standing very close, but careful not to touch him. Myra helped him to sit up and then back into his chair while she stood beside him, petting at his hair and looking decidedly worried.

“What happened?” Twist asked in a dry voice. “How did he get so far away?”

“Twist, stop this,” Arabel said, her voice breaking at the edges. “You know I don’t have a brother. Now, what is wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he said, finally catching his breath now. He looked up to her, standing so close beside him. “There’s something wrong with you.”

Her sea-green eyes were full of enough frustration, shock, and fear to almost push her to tears. Twist looked back into her eyes—the exact twins of Jonas’s—and came to a decision. He had to know what was going on. Nothing else mattered. He stood up and stared back at Arabel silently only for a moment, before he reached out, fitting his fingers under her golden curls, against the warm skin at the back of her neck. Arabel gasped in shock, her hands falling to his chest.

Twist stared into her eyes for the last instant before his Sight burned out his vision with one of hers. Fire, screaming, and smoke filled his mind. He let it wash over him until he found himself standing in a burning room. A young girl, no older than five or six, was screaming and crying, gasping in the choking heat and smoke. Overwhelming terror rooted her to one spot. She knew she should run, but her body wouldn’t move. The thought that she was going to die raged in her young mind like the fire around her. A man appeared, fighting his way through a burning doorway. He pulled her into his arms before rushing back through the doorway. The ceiling gave way and showered them in flaming wood and blackened ash. The man buried her little face in his chest and kept running.

A small voice called out in the heat, causing the man to stop. Twist reached out with what will he had left to hold the moment still. In an instant, the whole world complied and froze. The flames hung in the air like beautiful waves of red and gold, the falling ash and embers stopped in flight. The man had turned back halfway, toward the source of the new voice. Twist looked under the half-destroyed table to find a small figure huddled underneath. He knew instantly that it was a young Jonas. He had been there too, needing rescue as much as his sister. But no matter how Twist tried to look at the image, it escaped his gaze. It was impossible to see him clearly.

In a moment, Twist lost his hold and the vision resumed. The man ran from the house in the nick of time with the girl in his arms. Outside, on the lawn where she used to play with her family, the girl stood sobbing, watching her house burn. Twist knew her parents couldn’t be saved, and felt the shattering heartbreak of it in his core. He watched as Howell Davis fought the firefighters to try and dive back in to save his own brother and sister-in-law, even though he was already badly hurt from the fire. Twist knew that Jonas must have been there beside Arabel, and that the two had held each other tightly as their world ended that night. But now, Arabel stood alone, with nothing but her shadow beside her in the flickering light of the fire.

The vision burned through Twist’s mind, filling him with all the horror and desperate sadness that Arabel had felt that night, and his instincts screamed for him to let go of her, to return to himself and end the pain. He hung on instead, barely aware as she fought to push him back—outside in the present. He pulled her closer instead, pressing his forehead against hers. He pulled at his Sight, searching for what was wrong with her beyond her devastating childhood trauma.

Vision after vision flashed by his awareness, filling his mind with moments where Jonas should have been. Each time, he was absent or obscured with a shadow, as if something had gone into her memory and scratched him out. Twist’s will finally ran out and he lost control, giving Arabel the chance to push him away. His hands fell from her, and she pulled hers away as he staggered back and fell to his knees on the tea shop floor. Ringing silence and dimness washed over Twist in the wake of the innumerable visions. He’d never held on to someone before. All her memories spun around him in a dizzy haze that couldn’t exist.

“Bloody hell, Twist!” Arabel screamed after the shock faded. “I thought you couldn’t touch anyone! Are you insane?”

“Twist?” Myra asked softly, moving closer and reaching out to him tentatively. Her fingers brushed ever so gently on his shoulder, and Twist let out a hiss of pain as his abused Sight revolted against even her concern. She recoiled instantly, watching him with shining jewel eyes that looked like they desperately wished to cry.

“It’s not your fault,” Twist muttered, looking up to Arabel at last with hollow eyes. His vision was blurry, his skin was cold, and his face felt damp. “Nothing’s ever been your fault,” he added, as a ripple of her emotions resurfaced in him: the survivor’s guilt of an innocent child. Twist couldn’t remember feeling that awful in his life. His tortured mind flew to any other thought, desperate to escape. “But you can’t remember Jonas because something won’t let you,” he said, wondering why it was suddenly so difficult to get his mouth to move properly. He reached up to find the tracks of tears on his own cheeks.

“That’s impossible,” Arabel said softly, watching Twist with careful eyes.

“It’s happening,” Twist said, looking back at her. “Right now. Something is hiding him from you, all the way back through your memories. It must have been that man…” Twist fought to keep conscious, wondering mildly how he could be in so much pain when nothing exactly hurt.

“What man?” Arabel asked, sounding exasperated now.

Before Twist could respond, the world finally fell into darkness and let him rest in an empty, numb abyss.