Hounds of Autumn

HOUNDS OF AUTUMN

by Heather Blackwood

Published by Triple Hare Press

Hounds of Autumn

Copyright © 2013 by Heather Blackwood. All rights reserved.

First Kindle Edition: January 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9888054-0-8

Cover and Formatting:
Streetlight Graphics

All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Dartmoor, 1890

T
hey say the moor has
eyes. The rolling hills and rock formations have a presence, not sentient, but aware.

And sometimes, the moor acts.

Chloe Sullivan gazed out the airship window, her chin resting in her palm. She watched the mist form condensation on the window, tiny beads blown backward in wet streaks. The English country slid by below, gray and green, dappled by light and shadow. It was a fellow traveler who had warned her about the moor, an older gentleman she had encountered while taking in some air on the deck of the Queen Anne.

The Queen Anne was a newer airship, large and luxurious. The enormous hydrogen-filled blimp was painted crimson and gold, and the passenger quarters were richly appointed, with burgundy upholstered seats and brass-rimmed viewing ports. A wooden viewing deck formed a long oval around the enclosed passenger quarters, allowing passengers to take a stroll or look down upon the passing countryside.

She had been admiring the view and trying to ignore the sharp wind when an older gentleman sidled up to the brass railing beside her. He was returning to his native Dartmoor and took great pleasure in telling her about the moor’s supposed sentience upon discovering that this was her first visit. He had also told her ghost stories about piskies, black hounds and spirits. She had loved the ghost stories.

But after a few minutes, the cold had driven her back to her seat inside the cabin. She turned to reach for her satchel, noting that her husband, Ambrose, had nodded off. His hands were folded over his slightly rounded mid-section and his long legs were stretched out, his feet beneath the adjacent seat. Oddly, her pet mechanical cat, Giles, was not nearby. How strange. He rarely left her side.

Someone screamed.

“Get it off!” a woman shrieked. “Get it off!”

Turning to the shrill noise, Chloe spotted a well-coifed, middle-aged matron grabbing at her elaborate purple feathered hat. The mechanical cat clung to the hat, his small body ferociously clinging with all four paws, his tiny hinged jaws opening and closing on one of the feathers.

The cat’s weight pushed the hat sideways on the woman’s head. Chloe watched, aghast, as Ambrose leapt to the woman’s aid and attempted to pry Giles off of the hat. Giles thrashed wildly, creating small explosions of feather wisps and bits of ribbon.

Chloe was at Ambrose’s side in an instant, pinning the hat to the woman’s head while her husband pulled one paw, then the other from the ever more shredded confection on the woman’s head.

“Hold the hat down,” said Ambrose. “I think I can get under his front paws.”

“I have it.”

“What’s gotten into him?” said Ambrose.

The woman continued to scream, now trying desperately to tear the hat off, thwarting Chloe’s and Ambrose’s efforts. No sooner had Ambrose pulled a second clawed cat paw from the hat, than the first paw, drawn back like a magnet, reattached itself.

”I can’t get him,” said Ambrose.

“Then trade,” Chloe said, reaching for Giles without waiting for Ambrose’s answer.

As Ambrose steadied the remains of the hat atop the now crying matron, Chloe ran her fingers along Giles’s velvet patchwork underside and found the tiny slit in the fabric that concealed his power switch. She flipped it. As he lost power, Giles made a tiny mechanical “Brrr?” and turned his yellow lamplike eyes to his creator in what was certainly a look of deepest betrayal.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Chloe murmured. Once he was still, she folded his legs and tail in, making him into a compact brown velvet ball.

“What is that horrid thing?” the woman cried. Her hair was half down from its pins, flying around her face in mad disarray. Ambrose returned her hat, if the mass of shredded ribbon and feathers could still be called such a thing, with murmured apologies. A tiny wax pear dangled from that hat for a moment before falling off and rolling under a seat.

An airship steward, pressed to the nines in a sharp navy uniform and wearing a sour expression, appeared at Chloe’s elbow and looked in horror at the tableau. The woman pointed an imperious finger at Giles.

“That, that, thing attacked me!” At the steward’s hesitation, the woman’s finger trembled in rage. “It jumped on me and utterly destroyed my new hat!” This last word came out as a choking sob.

“Did it injure you?” asked Ambrose, and the woman shook her head.

“He’s usually quite well behaved,” Chloe explained. “He must have—I don’t know. He’s not dangerous.” She cuddled Giles to her bosom. Thank heavens the poor woman was not hurt. She felt terrible for turning Giles off. Poor thing. It wasn’t his fault that his visioscopic regulators were malfunctioning. Or perhaps his synapse couplings weren’t adequately transferring.

“Is that thing yours?” asked the steward.

Ambrose answered. “Ours, yes. And we’re mortified, absolutely mortified by its behavior.” Chloe noted that Ambrose called Giles an “it.” She bristled slightly before closing her mouth and allowing him to smooth things over. He excelled at that.

“Please allow me to make recompense for the destruction of your property, madam,” he said. “The malfunction of our mechanical was unexpected. Completely without precedent. I cannot understand how anyone could invent a mechanical capable of doing such a thing. ”

Chloe glared at him. He continued without seeming to notice.

“We’re staying in Farnbridge for a month, and if you have your hat shop send me their bill …”

Ambrose spoke quietly with the woman, and she gradually lowered herself into her seat, patted her hair into a semblance of order and eventually gave him a weak smile. Chloe was about to return to her seat, when the steward motioned her aside.

“Are you getting off in Dartmoor?” he asked.

“Yes. In Farnbridge. Why?”

“We should be there in fifteen minutes,” he said. “I expect you’ll be leaving the airship without incident.”

Chloe drew herself up to her full height, which, combined with her plump figure and freckles, made her about as imposing as an angry hen.

“I’ll have you know that there’s no possible way that Gi—this mechanical,” she held up the still ball that was the cat, “could have hurt that woman. He just got overly excited. He’s not dangerous.”

“Be that as it may, mum. People outside of London aren’t used to mechanicals other than the usual household ones. Especially not the destructive variety.”

He eyed Giles. Chloe opened her satchel and slipped Giles inside, hoping that removing him from view would reduce the likelihood of confiscation. His little form slid in next to her notebook, an oil-blackened cloth, a tiny spanner and a rumpled sheaf of papers. She smiled as becomingly and demurely as she could and returned to her seat.

A few minutes later, Ambrose sank into the seat across from her and sighed heavily.

“Why did you make Giles with claws? What possible use was that?” he asked, rubbing his temples.

“He’s a cat. I couldn’t make a cat that couldn’t climb. That’s the best way to test his balancers. And what if one of the dogs tried to hurt him? I couldn’t leave him defenseless.”

“And it did not occur to you that he would use his claws in other ways?”

“He’s designed not to harm people. I don’t think his visioscopic sensors are faulty, but perhaps the regulators are malfunctioning. It’s not his fault. He’s a good cat.”

“He’s not a cat at all.”

“Yes, I know. What I mean to say is, he’s a good mechanical.”

“And do you know what is wrong with him?”

She sighed. She had known this question was coming. “No. Not yet. But I have to allow him to run. He can stay off for now, but I’ve worked too hard to shut him down permanently.”

“You must assure me that he will not be behaving in this manner once we reach my family’s house.”

They were in sensitive territory now. Chloe could make no such assurance. She knew that Ambrose’s considerable tolerance for her creations had a limit. He would not force her to deactivate Giles permanently, but a mechanical that was destructive was a hazard.

“I promise to keep a close watch over him,” she said.

“Please do. It is vitally important. I haven’t seen the family in years.” Ambrose looked out the window.

Good. He had not told her that Giles had to remain deactivated or packed away. Per their marriage agreement, he could not forbid her from operating Giles. But he could have politely asked her to keep him confined to one room. Or he could have requested that she shut him off until they were back at their home in London. She could refuse the request, but she knew she would not have the heart. He was too good in allowing her many freedoms denied to other women. In return, when he did make a request, she tried to respect his wishes despite her instincts to do just as she pleased.

Chloe was glad that Mr. Frick, Ambrose’s grim valet, was not there to witness the incident. He wouldn’t have said a word, but his disapproving countenance would have conveyed plenty. Fortunately, he was traveling in another section of the airship, along with Miss Haynes, her lady’s maid.

Later, as Chloe and Ambrose stood on the airship platform awaiting Mr. Frick and Miss Haynes, they watched a luggage loader roll to the base of the airship and open the luggage compartment. The loader had half a dozen wheels and its steel sides were scratched and dented. It was almost the height of a man, and like other industrial mechanicals, could only perform repetitive tasks. It hissed and clunked as it swung its hooked arms into the compartment and removed trunks and baggage.

“What’s wrong with it?” asked Ambrose.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re looking at it as if you want to disassemble it.”

The loader released a sharp hiss of steam and backed away from the airship. It turned and rolled across the platform, another similar loader moving forward to take its place.

“Well, yes,” she said. “But it’s nothing serious. Two of its arms have minor problems with the joints and its directional motivator is operating unevenly.”

A few people murmured and pointed discreetly as they passed. Ambrose stood more stiffly than usual, leaning heavily on his cane. He was more than twenty years older than Chloe, tall, with a hint of well-fed contentedness around his mid-section. He was not a conventionally handsome man, but she found him pleasing enough. She looked at him with concern and then regret. She slid her arm into his.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The wind carried her words away, but Ambrose placed his hand over hers and left it there.