Snow (24 page)

“It should be right here.”

“Well, there’s no bloody door.”

“Maybe we should try shooting through.”

“All right all right! No shooting!” the Clockwork Man cried. He spun another wheel and threw a switch, unlocking the panel, which slid open. “Come in, if you must.”

A pair of aristocrats was revealed, somewhat surprised, carrying pistols. One, the leader, was tall, blond, and blue eyed. His face was flushed with excitement. The other one was brown haired and
stockier—neither one could have been more than twenty.

“How can I help you?” the Clockwork Man asked through gritted teeth.

“Are you—the—Clockwork Man?” the blond one asked breathlessly.

The man in question held up his machine arm. “Have you met anyone else like this? Now, ask me your question and be on your way.”

“Oh, er, I have no—we only sought proof of your existence—”

“Well, you have it. You can tell all your gentleman friends you found the freak; discuss it at your next club or foxhunt. Impress some young lady or other. Good day, then.”

Alan and Raven exchanged glances: their options were to fade into the shadows of the laboratory or to disappear past the newcomers as soon as possible.

“But wait!” The blond one held up his hand just as the Clockwork Man reached for the button to shut the door. His friend raised the pistol. “Oh Henry, put it away. I am the duke of Edgington. This is Henry. I am a member of the Ghost Club …?” The Clockwork Man rolled his eyes. “It is very prestigious, sir,” the young duke said indignantly. “Charles Dickens himself was a member. We wish to find—I am on a quest for the strange and unusual, the exciting, the supernatural—”

“Who are these two?” his friend asked, gesturing at Alan and Raven with the pistol.

“These
two came with a legitimate riddle and paid the price for their answer already. Actually, they
are
the unusual and exciting. Perhaps you all should talk. Leave, I mean, and talk on your way out. Actually …” the Clockwork Man’s face turned thoughtful, and he looked at Alan and Raven. “You two should
definitely
take this man, and this other man, and their guns along with you.”

“Absolutely not!” Raven snapped.

“My dear Raven,” the Clockwork Man said gently. “You never know when you’re going to find you have need of a duke. You have here a rich, powerful, and
trustworthy
young man—” The duke nodded eagerly and hopefully. “—who may be interested in your cause. Why not invite him along?”

Raven and Alan looked at each other uneasily.

“Have ye ever noticed,” Alan said to no one in particular, “that lately, whenever there’s trouble, a duke is involved?”

L
ike Alan and Snow before them, the duke of Edgington and Henry were blindfolded on their way back to the Lonely One’s new hideout.

“Ye get used to it,” Alan told them, winking at Raven.

“These two are not going to get ‘used’ to it,” Raven said. “We bring them back, we wake Snow, they go away. They are only coming at all in case there’s trouble, and there won’t
be
any.”

“We could take a carriage,” the duke suggested eagerly. “I will pay.”

“That’s why you brought him along, isn’t it?” Henry muttered under his breath.

“Ah, are the drivers nae going to be suspicious that we have ye both blindfolded?” Alan asked.

The duke frowned, or appeared to—it was hard to tell with the blindfold on. Then he brightened. “You could say it was for my birthday! You’re taking me to a surprise party!”

Raven, Alan, and even blindfolded Henry exchanged weary glances.

“I think we’d better stick to walking,” Alan suggested.

* * * *

When the four returned, Chauncey just rolled his eyes and went to get his pipe. “Is there to be no end of the stream of visitors we’ve been having?”

The Lonely Ones gathered and watched the duke and Henry remove their blindfolds as Alan and Raven explained what happened with the Clockwork Man.

“I say! So
this
is a hideout!” the duke exclaimed happily. Henry rolled his eyes, much like Chauncey had done, and threw himself into a chair.

Then the duke noticed Cat—and his
eyes
widened.

The Mouser quickly took Cat aside and nodded at Sparrow to make sure his wings were hidden. Henry didn’t notice.

“This doesn’t look so difficult,” Chauncey said, puffing and looking at the diagram and pieces of the machine.

“It just requires some gold, for the bit here,” Raven pointed. “About the size of the tip of your finger. Something to do with the way it never tarnishes, it isn’t affected by time.”

“Gold? That’s easy then.” Chauncey clapped his hands together. “Mouser? Sparrow? You feel like going on a jaunt?”

“You’re
thieves,”
Henry suddenly realized.

“Then that sort of makes you our prisoner, doesn’t it?” Alan said, pointing at Henry’s pistol, which, with the duke’s, was being worn by Chauncey.

“No, wait, here, don’t do that.” The duke tumbled
with his watch. “Please, let me. I haven’t helped at all yet.” He wrenched a charm off the fob and handed it to Alan. “Will this do?”

Alan peered at it. “You’re a Mason? Is there a secret club you
don’t
belong to?”

“I’m going to see Snow,” Raven said, leaving the room.

“Oh
yes,
let me see the sleeping damsel as well,” the duke said as he jumped up and followed Raven into the other room.

Chauncey looked at Henry, who continued to sit looking at his fingernails. “Don’t you want to see our
‘sleeping damsel’
as well?”

“My job is to keep the duke from getting into
too
much trouble on his ridiculous jaunts,” Henry replied. “Sleeping damsels don’t really interest me. Seeing if you are planning to attack him from behind, however, does.”

Chauncey nodded appreciatively. He and the Mouser then proceeded to ignore him and concentrate on putting the machine together.

Raven knelt next to Snow’s sleeping body and took her hand in his. Alan, Sparrow, and Cat watched quietly from the door.

“Just a little while longer,” he whispered to her. “Just a little, and—”
“That’s
your ‘Snow?’” the duke cried, coming in.

Raven flinched. “Yes,” he replied acidly. “She’s our Snow.”

“That’s
the young duchess of Kenigh Hall you have there.”

The Lonely Ones and Alan looked at each other.

“I went to her fourteenth birthday party. Years ago.” The duke leaned over Snow and looked at her interestedly. “She didn’t actually show up for very much of it. Some business with that nasty count what’s-his-name. I don’t remember—” He paused and looked up. “Ah, shouldn’t she be older? Like, ah, me?”

“She ain’t changed since she fell asleep,” Sparrow said quickly. Raven looked like he was going to kill the duke for his nonchalance and familiarity. “Ever since the duchess cast her spell on—” Cat hissed at Sparrow to stop speaking; Alan slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Which duchess? Anne of Mandagor?” the duke stood up. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Chauncey,”
Alan called, “I think we have an information leak.”

“Cor! Will ye all keep it down in there?” Chauncey shouted back. “Better yet, stop yer gabbing and come in and help us.”

Everyone did wind up helping, in each his or her own way, long into the night. Cat’s claws were invaluable for pushing bits of wire through and clamping pieces while Chauncey set them. Sparrow made tea and biscuits. Alan remained his cheerful and optimistic self, playing his fiddle to keep people awake. Henry kept
Raven and the duke from interacting as best he could.

A day—and many scratched heads—later, an ugly lump of a machine sat next to Snow’s sleeping body. It was a mass of tubes and jars of chemicals, wires of zinc and copper, and small bits of gold. A crank on the end had to be continuously operated during the process.

“This doesn’t look like anything the duchess had,” Cat said doubtfully.

“Just put the bits into her mouth, like the directions say,” Chauncey sighed, scratching his head and rubbing his eyes.

Everyone looked at Raven.

Hesitantly he reached over, placing a green and corroded copper wire onto her lips.

S
now awoke.

Not with a kiss, but with a jolt of electricity.

A voice spoke: “Wait, I want to see—”

Her eyes snapped open in pain, and beheld

Golden hair, blue eyes, a smile of wonder.

S
he blinked and sat up on her elbows. People surrounded her bed, or coffin, or whatever it was. One was the handsome man who had bent over, and the rest were … were
wrong
somehow—strange shapes under hoods, eager feral eyes.

“Who are you?” she demanded, frightened. “Where am I?”

The people all looked at one another, apparently as confused as she.

I know who they are,
she thought, putting her hand to her head.
They are—they are
—

“Who am I?” she shrieked, panicking. “Why am I here?”

A cloaked figure stepped forward to do something, restrain her maybe.
Its
eyes were all yellow and wrong, like a snake or something; when the figure opened its mouth to speak, sharp, evil little fangs showed.

She screamed and pulled away from the monster.

“Get away!”

She tried to get up, to run away, but her legs felt like they were made of stone; it took every bit of willpower just to back herself up into a corner.

“Easy,” a black-haired, normal-appearing young
man said, coming forward. “Don’t you remember us?”

He had pleasant brown eyes but a very serious face. It was handsome, but inspired nothing within her.

She shook her head. Then she began to cry.

She sat with the man called Henry, ironically the only one in the group who didn’t know her.

“Would you like some tea, or something?” he asked.

She looked around the dingy room, the broken furniture, the piles of pots, and shook her head.

“Can I, ah,” Henry sighed. “No, I don’t suppose there
is
anything I can really do for you.”

She was apparently a duchess. That was nice, since these people weren’t. She had run away from home because someone tried to kill her. Maybe. The blond duke didn’t seem to believe that her stepmother was capable of such a thing. Alan was a servant, but also her friend, which didn’t make sense from what she thought she could remember about how classes and society worked. These other ones were … thieves, or something, who took her in when she was wandering London, lost. The hooded figure was a girl, sort of. She approached her later and whispered sadly, “You really don’t remember me?” She kept her eyes lowered and lips covering her teeth. “You brushed my hair …?” Snow—that was
one
of her names—couldn’t imagine it.

The one called Raven had fierce tears in his eyes
but a stony face; he was close friends with Alan, it seemed. Plump Sparrow sniffled a bit, trying to be grown up and not cry—she had no idea what her relationship with the boy was. The ones called the Mouser and Chauncey kept their distance, for which she was grateful.

Presently they were all discussing her.

“I mean no offense, but it is obvious she cannot stay here,” said the duke.

Raven eyed him icily, but it was the Mouser who spoke and clenched his fists. “You mean to take her away? Absolutely not! This is her home.”

“Easy there, Mouse,” Chauncey warned. “This is her home, duke.”

“Come now. It was very kind of you to take her in—many people would have tried to take advantage of the duchess in such a state. It is obvious that you have cared for her….”

“Love
her,” Sparrow corrected.

“Well, all right, love her, but she has no memory, and nothing around here to stir it. She has been with you but two years asleep, a year awake—she
grew up
at Kenigh, with her father and mother—”

“
Step
mother,” said Alan.
“Evil
stepmother,” said the Mouser.

“I am not entirely convinced that she tried to do as you suggested; certainly she was cruel, but—”

“For heavens sake, man!” Chauncey cried, exasperated. “We take you into our hideout, show you our girl-under-a-spell, and tell you her story, and you
think we’d lie about something like
that?”

“All he’s saying,” Henry broke in gently, “is that she is more familiar with her room, her things, the people from home. And they have the resources there to care for her, doctors and the like. And Alan, the duke and I can stay in the area, making sure she is not …
abused
again. Alan, can you take up your old position there?”

“Ah, no.” The Scotsman’s brow darkened. “It would probably be best if I never set foot there again, where the duchess might see me.”

“Well, then, at least he and I will be there. And if she regains her memory, she can always return, right?”

Everyone was silent; the two sides glared at each other.

Raven finally spoke. “Why don’t we ask
Snow
what she wants to do?” he asked quietly.

They all looked surprised, then turned to her.

“Well, Princess?” Chauncey asked softly.

W
hen she told them she wanted to go home, she had no idea what she really meant. She wanted so badly a mother or father she recognized, some warm and loving place and person she would know, and it just seemed more likely to find them at the place called Kenigh, The disappointed and sad looks on the faces of her old friends, whom she could not remember, was almost too much to bear; she pleaded to go at once.

The blond duke had Henry send word by post to Kenigh and swore to Chauncey that she would never be long out of their sight.

The journey was long and tiring.
Well, at least with no memory I shall be experiencing old places again like seeing them for the first time!
But the view outside the train was drab and rainy; she played checkers with Henry while the duke prattled on about all he could remember about Kenigh Hall and their somewhat shared life as privileged children.