Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) (15 page)

“What?”

“You heard me, get moving! Go on! Get out of here!” He presses a button, causing the stairs to lower, then chases me across the room.

“But—” I leap on the moving platform. “I don’t know the way!”

“You’re a smart girl,” Urlick hollers over the motor as he retracts the stairs. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. If worst comes to worst, let your curiosity lead you!”

F
ifteen

Urlick

I return to work on the hydrocycle as soon as she’s gone, her image still weighing heavy on my mind. That’s the way it’s been since the moment I laid eyes on her, white-knuckled and clinging to the back of my coach. For some reason, I can’t push the thought of that girl out of my head.

I’ve no idea why she vexes me so. Especially when I find her so very irritating. I drop the wrench I’m holding into the bin and select another, spinning it off the end of a finger. Eyelet in the kitchen. Eyelet in the study. Eyelet at the table, sitting inappropriately close to me. The shape of her face, the lines of her lips, that tongue of hers—incessantly wagging.

The wrench falls, smarting my toe. Cursing, I bend to pick it up.

“The nerve of her, following me down here like that. She’s so stubborn, so pretentious and meddlesome, so...
beautiful.”

The hydrocycle sighs.

“Oh shut up, Bertie.” I wag my wrench at him. “This is all your fault, you know? Revealing yourself like you did.” Hands on hips, I stalk toward him. “What were you thinking?”

The cycle cowers.

“Yeah, I know. You weren’t. I’ve the same trouble when she’s around.” I clutch my forehead, clunking it with the wrench. “What is it, do you think? A mind trick? A sickness?” I whirl around. “Perhaps a spell. Do you think it’s a spell?”

Bertie chortles.

“No. You’re right.” I shake my head. “It can’t be a spell. She’d have done away with us both by now if that were true.” I pace. “I just don’t understand it.” I scratch my head. “Iris doesn’t make me feel this way. And Flossie certainly never has.”

Bertie groans.

“That’s enough out of you.” I wag the wrench again. “Flossie’s an excellent tutor and don’t you forget it. I don’t care if you fancy her or not, she’s the only one crazy enough to brave these woods. And I’m thankful that she does.” I turn, squinting in the cycle’s direction. “What
is
that?”

Bertie cringes, trying again to retract the tip of his ornery wing. But it just won’t disappear.

“Blasted fold!”

I stride over, grab hold of the webbing and stretch it out, then let go. The wing snaps back like whip. This time it disappears beneath the lid of the coffers box as it should. “Some day I’ll figure out how to fix that.”

Bertie shudders.

“Don’t look at me like that, I will.”

I turn and pick up my wrench again, pacing even more furiously around the floor. “I tell you, that girl is going to be the end of all of us, always mucking about, getting into things that don’t belong to her.” I turn. “Do you know I caught her yesterday, holding Iris hostage with a weapon in the kitchen?”

Bertie gasps.

“I know, unbelievable, isn’t it? Poor Iris nearly lost the end of her finger over Eyelet’s antics. And you know how Iris is about blood.”

Bertie coos.

“I just don’t understand what’s wrong with that girl. Why she can’t just leave things alone.” I tug at my chin. “What on earth could she be looking for?”

Bertie groans.

“Don’t be silly, what would she want with a machine? No.” I scratch my head. “There must be another reason. Or perhaps she’s just naturally that annoying.” I lean. “You know she barely knew me an hour yesterday before quizzing me about my face?”

Bertie rattles.

“Yeah, I know. Then she turns right around and persists in acting so enamored with me, when I know she can’t be. What’s
that
all about?”

Bertie skitters, flushed.

“That’s not possible.
Is
it?” My face flushes red. “Of course not. What are you thinking?” I fling myself around again, startling Bertie. “Why would someone like her be interested in a creature like me?” I bend, staring at my marred reflection in the side of Bertie’s nickel-plated gas tank, dragging a finger down the fang of the open-mouthed snake mark on my cheek.
You’re an abomination,
I hear my father say.
An error. A defect. A disgrace.

I snap up. A spear of rage rises between my ribs. “She can’t be. No one could. Even my own father couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

I cast the wrench across the room at the wall, where it sticks. “She must have another motive.”

Bertie shudders.

“Whatever’s going on in that pretty little head of hers, mark my words: things will be different soon. Once I find a way to get that
blasted
machine working”—I point the wrench—“I’ll be able to transform myself from the monster of this house to the master of it, then everything—absolutely
everything
—will be different.”

S
ixteen

Eyelet

I step from the dark tunnel into the equally gloomy corridor, race up the stairs, and swing open the back kitchen door. Luckily the tea towel plug is still in place. I slip through, panther-quiet, unnerved at having been so close to what I hoped was my father’s machine and yet missing out on the opportunity to unveil it. I vow to return at my first chance.

I turn around and run smack into Iris.

She jumps back, looking alarmed. Her eyes scan the hallway behind me in search of Urlick.

“It’s all right,” I say, sweeping the cobwebs from my hair. “No need to alert him. He already knows. He’s the one who sent me packing.”

She smirks, and I swear I hear her laugh as she turns her prissy little self back to her dishes.

“If it’s all right with you, I’m going to retire into the study for a while,” I say, smacking the dust from my skirts. “I think I’ve had enough adventure for one day.”

Iris glares at me as I pass.

“Don’t worry, I promise I won’t get into anything.”
Much.
I cross my fingers behind my back, so I don’t have to feel guilty over what I’m about to do. I left some unfinished business in the study yesterday. And there’s just enough time before lunch for me to complete it. I pat the ostrich on both its heads as I enter, then fall into a chair in the mote-swizzled room.

Iris snorts, eyeing an unfolded basket of laundry on a chair. When I don’t move, she takes up the basket and stomps up the stairs. Precisely what I wanted her to do.

I wait until I hear the click of the lock at the top before I leap to my feet and race across the room to the mantel, snatching a doily up off the armchair on the way. Aether light crackles, dancing in streaks like a storm across the ceiling. Eyes peer down on me from every wall.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these heads.

I swallow, doing my best to ignore them, and reach for the jar, using the doily to clean off the remaining smutch, gasping at what I see.

Inside the glass churns the strangest bit of stygian weather: a writhing, twisting, wisp-like cloud, black as the Mariah that comes to collect the dead, and just about as frightening. Like someone’s captured and bottled a wretched storm. I stand there, captivated by its eerie presence, monitoring the twist and turn of its endless journey, running a finger over the glass, and pull back when I realize it’s following.

Why on earth would it do that? I lean in a little closer, seeing bits of cloud break off. Like dark fingers they pry at the seal at the base of the glass. I swallow, horrified at the thought of any of it escaping.

My gaze drops to the plinth, still covered in smutch. Using the remainder of the doily I quickly clean it off. A square of dark-veined marble appears, the color of a twilight sky. Screwed to the front of it is a tiny square brass plaque, some sort of identification marker, but instead of words it’s engraved,
strangely
, with a string of numbers—
4690073
—followed by the letters
H.H.B.

I straighten; my eyes are drawn to the peculiar-looking picture hanging on the wall directly behind the jar. I don’t remember that being there yesterday, but perhaps I was too preoccupied with all the heads. I stare at the picture, running a finger over its frame, cut from the same marble as the plinth. The glass is coated in a thick layer of dust. I reach up, quickly scouring a tiny hole, through which I spot a drawing. The paper it’s on is very yellow and the ink is smudged here and there, as if it’s been water damaged over the years, but still the overall image is clear: it’s a map. I’ve found a map of the Follies. I scour the hole bigger and bigger, confirming it is in fact a drawing of the Ramshackle Follies in its entirety, from the edge of Gears forward to the end of the escarpment.

My heart jumps as my eyes soak it in. Every detail, every river, every creek, every bend in every road, painstakingly rendered. And then, mysteriously—there’s
nothing.
The upper left corner of the map has been left completely empty. The last quarter is simply blank. Nothing but a span of yellow paper. No label. No explanation. It’s as if the world
is
flat and this were the end of it, the jagged cliffs of Ramshackle’s escarpment the last known destination.

I scrub the glass again and again to be sure my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me. But there’s nothing. There’s absolutely nothing there. Perhaps the cartographer forgot to finish...or perhaps he
died
before he was able. What other reason could there be for leaving a formal map unfinished?

I remove all the dust, right to the corners, thinking perhaps I’ve missed something—an inlet, an island, maybe another piece of land—when my eyes catch on a tiny line of writing that stretches across the bottom right corner of the map. It’s cursive. Old English. Slightly water-smudged and loopy, hard to read, but I squint and manage it.

The Village of Ramshackle Follies, the 17th of September, 1892.

I pull back. Just six months after my father’s death.

In the county of Kenton, in the borough of Fluxshire (formerly of the borough of Brethren)

“Brethren?” I gasp. Ramshackle Follies was once a part of the Commonwealth? How is that possible? Hasn’t it always been just a discarded piece of contaminated land?

Annexed in the year 1891.

1891? The year prior to the flash. Why the need to annex just Ramshackle from the Commonwealth, I wonder? And why, then? Whose decision was that?

My eyes drift over the boundaries, imagining them as seamless. Imagining all of us under one Commonwealth. All of us, equal. All people the same.

I sigh and look again at the map, discovering something else at the end of the writing. A number, in even tinier script.

4690073 HHB.

It can’t be—my eyes shift from the map to the pedestal and back again.

It
is
—the exact number that’s on the jar. I blink to make sure I’m seeing clearly. There’s no mistaking it. It’s the same.

What
is
this? I run my finger over the hood of the glass again and the storm inside switches direction. And what does it have to do with an unfinished map?

“That’s poisonous, you know.”

I fly back at the sound of a voice in the room, nearly elbowing the jar from the mantelpiece. I throw a hand overtop to keep it from falling, and turn to find a girl, not more than a year or two older than me, draped over one of the ostrich’s necks. Her eyes look oddly familiar, grey as the stone on the Academy walls, back in Brethren. She smirks, as if she’s proud she’s startled me. “Good job, you caught that,” she says. “Don’t want something like that getting loose.”

“Like what?” I say, assessing her from head to toe.

“Bottled Vapours.” She steps briskly into the room. She’s dressed all in black, as though she were in mourning, yet she wears no veil. She has a harelip and mean eyes, and a dark brown oval-shaped mole, covered in thick brown hair that takes up most of her right cheek. A blood-red line extends from the bottom of the mole, like a tail, curling into a circle at the base of her throat. I can’t help but think it looks like a small rat has taken to squatting on her face. She smiles again and its fat belly wrinkles. Her putty pink lip strains over snaggled teeth.

“Or at least that’s what they say is inside,” she completes her sentence.

“Who’re they?” I ask as she strips her hands of her gloves in one fluid motion.

“Just people.” She hinges at the waist, and taps the glass. “I hear they sell them as novelty gifts at the gypsy freak shows on the outskirts of town. Makes one wonder, doesn’t it?” She turns to me, her eyes electric. “What sort of person bottles such a thing? Not to mention what sort of person purchases one for display in their home?” She grins again, and I’m fascinated by how her pink putty lip doesn’t split in two.