Clockwork Twist : Waking (29 page)

“Fine, you can have the ship,” the official said with a sigh, checking over his paperwork. “I'll count it as yours, miss, but we will still require the captain’s personal possessions.”

“That's fine,” Cybele said dismissively. “It's all damn gaudy stuff anyway.”

The clockwork puppet, or course, had already been reported as stolen, and was instantly returned to Capt. Davis once the British forces boarded the pirate airship.

It was laid out on the bamboo pier at Twist's request.  He then set to work immediately, fitting the new crystal into her chest.  He carefully made sure that every single part was perfectly in place before he closed the chest panel again and re-covered her form modestly with the pink silk.  Then, at long last, he bent down to her metal ear.

“Myra?” he said softly. “Wake up, my dear.”

The puppet's metal eyelids fluttered open soundlessly, revealing the pure blue jewels inside, and the metal lips parted with an expression of mild surprise.  In a fluid, graceful motion, the puppet sat up quickly, holding her head in her perfect, clockwork hands.  Then, looking at her hands, she bent them slowly, testing the motion, before turning to look at the world around her.  As she did, her blue jewel eyes landed on Twist and stuck, her face blooming into a shining copper smile.  Twist watched, transfixed, to see that her movements were just as life-like and beautiful as Elizabeth's had been.

“Twist!” Myra's metal mouth said on a voice that was only slightly metallic, and otherwise sounded just like it had in his dreams. “You did it!” she said, her voice breaking into a happy, sprightly giggle as she threw her metal arms around his neck, pulling him close.

Twist's Sight blurred over at her now familiar touch, showing him nothing more coherent than the faint glow of her bright, ecstatic emotions.  He held her gently in his arms as well, stunned by the sheer joy of such a simple pleasure.  She pulled back just enough to smile at him, his hands still resting lightly at her slender metal waist.

“You're simply wonderful, do you know that?” she said, her words brimming with excitement and glee.

“I'm nothing but a clock maker,” he muttered, almost unable to control his own thoughts in this blissful haze. “You're the miracle.”

Myra laughed happily and pulled him close once again, fitting her nose into the curve of his neck, just below his ear. “I'll be your miracle if you'll be mine,” she said, playful but soft.

Somewhere between all the fear, pain, and stress of the day he'd had, the sudden sense of successful completion, and the pure, unbridled bliss that he was now swallowed up in, Twist lost his grip on the world and fell finally, into a warm and gentle space of soothing darkness.

Twist woke to the sound of gentle waves and the rain-like ticking of palm leaves in the soft, warm breeze.  Before he managed to open his eyes, he noticed that he was lying down and that his arms and throat were exposed to that moist, warm air.  A cool, soft towel that pressed gently against his brow, drew his attention finally to his eyes.  Blinking them open, he saw Myra's copper face peering down at him, her wire hair hanging over her shoulders like a shimmering maroon waterfall, in a halo of golden sunlight.

“Oh!” she said, a happy surprise flashing onto her face as she took the cool towel away. “Welcome back,” she said sweetly. “You gave me quite a start, you know,” she added chidingly as she somehow managed to smile down at him crossly.

“I'm sorry,” Twist said, finding his soft voice a little ragged at the edges. “What happened?” he asked, looking around to find himself lying on his back in the white sand while Myra sat at his side.  One of her hands was resting in his.

“You fainted,” Myra said, sounding concerned now. “Dr. Rodés said you'd be fine after a rest.  Are you all right now?”

“Yes, I think so,” Twist said, finding it more difficult than it should have been to lean himself up on an elbow.  Myra moved instantly to help him and Twist was surprised to find a measure of strength in her slender arms. “Thank you,” he said, smiling up at her as convincingly as he could. “I've just had a very long … well, actually I've had quite a number of long days, all in a row,” he said, coming to the thought as he said it.

“Oh, you poor dear,” Myra said, reaching out with a cool, shining copper finger to tuck a stray black curl behind his ear.  Somehow, none of the trials that he'd gone through managed to stay in his thoughts as she touched him so casually.  He could have spent the rest of time in that moment, and would have given anything in the world just to do so.

Myra then turned to the side and waved a shining hand in the air. “Arabel,” she called, her sweet, child-like voice pouring from her throat effortlessly with a bell-like ring, “he's awake!”

Arabel hurried closer, stopping to kneel in the sand beside Twist. “Hey look!” she said brightly to him. “You survived yet again!  Do you know, you might just be cut out for this sort of thing after all?”

“I sincerely hope not,” Twist said seriously to her.

“Wow, you weren't kidding about needing a lie down,” Jonas said, walking closer as well. “Feel better?” he asked, grinning down at Twist.

“Somewhat,” Twist said, silently checking himself over.  The general state of aching pain seemed to have subsided from his bruised limbs, and the moment of rest had restored some of his ability to focus properly. “I could really use a good cup of tea, though,” he added with a sigh, wondering how many miles he was away from anything of the sort.

“Are you up for a walk?” Jonas asked. “There's a tea shop just down the way,” he said, hooking a thumb at the beginning of the city behind him, nestled into the jungle at the edge of the beach. “They've got a nice Darjeeling.  I just had a pot an hour ago.”

Twist stared at him for a moment while he struggled to accept such a glorious idea. “I could walk the rest of the way around the world for a good pot of Darjeeling right now,” he said in total seriousness.

“Great, let's get you up,” Jonas said, laughing under his breath as he bent down to help Twist to his feet.

Arabel said something brightly to Myra that Twist couldn't quite follow, and whisked her away while Jonas led him on to the tea.  They came to an open hut with a palm thatched roof and bamboo walls, which sat on the white sand against the edge of the jungle.  There were three small tables made of thin, tied bamboo poles, and thick, un-split logs set around them as seats.

Though Twist's hope for proper tea in such a place began to fade as he sat at one of the tables with Jonas, he had to admit that the view was lovely: the wide white beach stretched out to one side, dotted with palm trees that swayed in the light breeze, the water—now a deep azure blue in the failing light—lapping lazily at the sand, and the sun fell just behind the height of the jungle at the far end of the bay in an open sky of purple, pink, and gold.

Jonas said something to a girl at the back of the shop, and then turned to Twist. “You know,” he said, “Quay has been arrested, Cybele is taking her new ship back to Hong Kong and Howell is taking the
Vimana
and his crew back to Bombay to collect his reward.  That leaves you and I with a choice to make.”

“Only you and I?” Twist asked, unsure where everyone Jonas hadn't mentioned was planning to go from here.

“Let's face it, Twist,” Jonas said, looking at him squarely with pale blue eyes, “Myra and I are the only people in the world who you can bear to touch.  You and Myra are the only two people in the world who I can bear to look at.  We would be much happier together than apart.”

“Wait,” Twist said, nervous of losing details with all his tired senses. “You can look at her as well?”

“I tried it,” Jonas said, nodding. “All I saw were useless, random flashes of present and future.  None of it bothered me in the least.  I have nothing to fear when I look at her.  I mean, its not like she can die again,” he offered easily.

“And so, you think the three of us should stay together,” Twist said.

“Don't you?” Jonas asked.

While Twist searched his mind for even a single good reason against what Jonas was saying, the shop girl appeared at their table with a ceramic tea pot and a pair of what Twist found to be quite ordinary looking tea cups.  She poured a cup for each of them before disappearing into the back of the shop again.  Twist took a sip and was instantly overcome with both familiar comfort and a terrible and sudden homesickness.  He let out a long breath, staring into his delicious tea.

“Am I ever going back to London?”

“Well, sure we could stop by,” Jonas said. “Why not?”

“I mean, actually going home,” Twist said, looking up at him with a heavy feeling of defeat already pressing down on him. “I'm never going home again, am I?”

“Well, think about this,” Jonas said. “Do you think Myra would be happy living in your little clock shop and never getting out except to walk around in gray old London?”

“It's a very modern and busy city, you know,” Twist pointed out in his home's defense.

“While you were out, she kept asking us all about where we are,” Jonas said, smiling lightly. “You should have seen it.  She got more and more excited as Ara and I listed off the places we each had to cross to get here.  I mean, she's been trapped in that cold, empty palace for who knows how long!  The girl wants to see the world.  And just look at her,” Jonas said, waving a hand down the beach.

Twist turned around in his seat to look after his gesture and found Myra and Arabel talking to a fruit vendor in the distance.  Myra turned and swayed, lifting her arms and moving her feet to an unheard rhythm, dancing happily in the sand while the vendor and Arabel clapped and smiled to watch her.

“She's glorious.  We don't have to sell her to make a load of money,” Jonas said, drawing an alarmed and pointed look from Twist. “She knows that she's lovely, and she likes to show off.  If we set up venues and charge a fee for people to see her, then she'd be perfectly happy to dance for them, they'd be delighted to see her, and you and I wouldn't have any trouble to support her or ourselves for a very long time.  Not to mention, she'd get to see a lot of the world if we bought ourselves an airship.”

“You mean to turn that wondrous creature into a circus attraction?” Twist snapped, disgusted with the words even as he spoke them.

“Great opera singers travel around to perform,” Jonas shot back instantly. “She's a dancer, and an impossible beauty of technology and magic.  What's the difference?”

“What if people treat her like a side show freak?” Twist asked back, already feeling himself begin to give in to Jonas's ever shifting logic.

“Is that guy treating her like a freak?” Jonas asked, pointing down the beach with his tea spoon.  Twist turned to see the fruit vendor smiling widely at Myra as he handed her a small sack and bowed deeply to her.

Twist looked back at Jonas darkly. “Why do you have to make so much sense?”

“How about this?” Jonas asked, smiling now. “We split the proceeds, but you get the final word on any decision directly about Myra,” he said, offering a handshake over the table. “If you don't like the way she's treated, or don't think she's completely happy, then things change.”

Twist took his time, even if it was just to make him wait, before he finally took the handshake.  The instant he did, he felt the world turn around him, as if his whole life had just gone through an enormous change, never to be the same again.

“Hi boys,” Arabel said, walking under the roof of the tea shop hut with Myra. “How's the tea treating you?” she asked Twist.

“Better than your bloody brother,” Twist muttered, sipping at his tea.

“Oh, what are you doing now?” Arabel snapped quickly at Jonas, swiping at his arm with the back of her hand. “You brute!”

“Steady on!” Jonas gasped, a look of great injustice on his face.

“Here, I'll cheer you up,” Myra said, stepping closer to Twist.

Without a moment of hesitation or warning, she turned and sat herself down comfortably on Twist's knee, dropping the small sack she's gotten from the fruit vendor on the table in front of her.  Twist's hand moved to her hip before he could stop it, and try as he might, it simply wouldn't move away.  A lifetime of culture and propriety screamed at him for this radically undignified display.  Myra, however, didn't seem to even notice, swinging her feet under the table.

“Here,” she said, plucking one of the small, bumpy, red fruits out of the bag. “These are my favorite,” she said, flashing him a smile. “Well, they were when I still had a stomach,” she added easily as her fine, metal fingers began to carefully peal the red skin off of the little fruit.  Once she'd bared the translucent white flesh inside it, she held it up in front of Twist's mouth by the stem. “Try one,” she said brightly, waiting for him to comply.

At a total loss of any other options, Twist opened his mouth and let her feed him.  The fruit itself had one of the most foreign flavors he'd ever experienced—gently sweet, cool on the tongue, and oddly akin to celery, all at the same time—while the texture was at once soft and crunchy.  Once he got over the strangeness of it, he found that he quite liked this new taste.

“Well?” Myra asked, peering at him curiously from inches away. “Do you like it?”

“You know, I rather do,” he said, smiling back at her in light surprise.

“Would you like another?” Myra asked excitedly.

“Yes please,” Twist said, finally far too drenched in happiness to bother with propriety for another instant.  He managed to move his hand off her hip and put it on her slender waist instead, to steady her on his knee.  He found that, somewhere along the way, all of the tension and fatigue in his tired body had vanished without a trace.

“Oh I'm so glad you like them too,” Myra said, reaching for another one from the bag.  Twist's felt the pressure of Jonas's eyes and glanced off of Myra to find a wide, knowing grin on the other man's face.

“What?”

“I told you you'd like Lychee,” Jonas said smoothly, gesturing to the image before him.

“Wait, your vision!” Twist said quickly as the memory returned. “You saw this?  Back on the
Vimana
before we even got to Nepal, when you looked at me at day.”

Jonas nodded, smiling.

“Then you knew, all along, that she'd be alive and perfect,” he said, looking back to Myra's curious expression, “sitting on my lap and being lovely—this whole time you knew?” Twist asked, looking back at Jonas in astonishment. “You knew that we'd all survive and end up right here, right now, just like this.”

“I believe I told you as much, didn't I?”

“No wonder you're always such a know it all,” Arabel muttered, staring at Jonas darkly.

Twist turned back to Myra and leaned in closer. “And he doesn't like to use his Sight,” he said softly to her, before shaking his head.

Myra laughed lightly, sending a shiver of pure delight up his spine.  In that instant, Twist realized that it really didn't matter at all where he was in the world, or what sort of life he was living, so long as he was present to witness her every joy.