The Clockwork Three (31 page)

“It’s a piece of a golem.”

Madame Pomeroy picked it out of Hannah’s palm with her thumb and forefinger, as though afraid to smudge it with her fingerprints. “That is exactly what it is. How on earth did you ever come to possess such a thing?”

“I … took it. By accident.”

“From where?” Madame Pomeroy asked.

“The Archer Museum.”

“That is not where it belongs.” Madame Pomeroy handed the fragment to Yakov, who slipped it inside his robes. “You know, when I took you on as my attendant, Yakov said you would one day offer me something of great worth. He saw it, the way he sees things, and I have learned to trust him. Thank you for the gift, child.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And thank you for telling me the truth about your father and my necklace. You have no idea how much it means to me to understand why you did what you did. I sincerely hope your father’s health continues to improve.” And then she turned to Giuseppe. “You have a green violin, young man. Not too many of those out there in the wide, wide world.”

Giuseppe adjusted the case on his back. “No. I don’t suppose there are.”

“Are all of you children walking around with legends in your pockets? Frederick?”

“Not anymore,” Frederick said. Hannah and Giuseppe laughed.

“A green violin.” Madame Pomeroy’s voice became serious. “May I see it?”

Giuseppe felt reluctant, but slipped the case from his shoulder. He snapped the latches and pulled the instrument from the case. The wooden neck felt so right in his hand, like a living thing that knew him and welcomed his touch.

Madame Pomeroy sighed, and then in a hushed voice she said, “Giuseppe, would you allow me to buy that instrument from you?”

Giuseppe took a step away from her. Buy his green violin? What amount could he ask for? The instrument was priceless to him. But if he asked for enough, he would be able to buy a boat ticket for Pietro. “I don’t know,” he said.

“What plans do you have for it?” Madame Pomeroy asked with a determined curiosity.

Giuseppe looked at the ground at Madame Pomeroy’s feet. “Play it for my family, I suppose. And for myself.”

“Do you play well?”

“He has a gift, Madame,” Hannah said. “It’s like magic.”

“I see.” Madame Pomeroy laid a finger on her cheek, and held it there while she appeared to think something over. “Instead of playing for change on the street,” she finally said, “how would you like to play for a king?”

“A king, ma’am?” Giuseppe said.

“Kings, actually. And queens. And emperors. And the finest musicians and composers in the world.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I am leaving tonight on a journey across the ocean. Come with me, and play your instrument throughout the royal courts of the Old Country.”

Giuseppe thought about it, but not for long. “There’s only one place I want to go, ma’am, and that’s home.”

“Italy?” Madame Pomeroy asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That is where I had originally planned to go as well. But circumstances have demanded a more indirect route. Come with me, and in a short time you will see your Italy again. I promise you.”

“No offense, ma’am, but I can buy my own ticket.”

“Actually,” the reverend said, “you can’t, Giuseppe. A part of this new law means the city will be stepping in to handle the welfare of the buskers. I’m afraid no one will be permitted to leave the city until we have sorted things out. Eventually we may find a way to send the children home, but until then …”

“Could he leave with me?” Madame Pomeroy asked.

The reverend appeared to think about that. “If you’d be willing to sign as his guardian, I suppose he could.”

“Then, we shall take care of that in the morning before my steamer leaves.” She turned to Giuseppe. “If that is what you wish.”

Giuseppe looked this strange woman over. Her eyes seemed to be hiding things, but not malicious things. Just secrets. But Hannah had trusted her, and something about Madame Pomeroy’s manner told him that he could trust her, too. And Yakov had already risked his life to save Giuseppe’s. With what the reverend had said, this might be his only chance.

But he stopped. “What about Pietro?”

Everyone in the room turned their eyes on the small boy standing in their shadows. He swallowed and inched closer to Giuseppe.

“I will look after him,” Reverend Grey said. He went to Pietro and wrapped a sheltering arm around his little shoulder. “Personally.”

“And Ferro and Alfeo?” Giuseppe asked.

“I will look after all of Stephano’s boys until we can find them homes.”

That was enough for Giuseppe. He met Madame Pomeroy’s secretive eyes. “I’ll come with you.”

The next morning, Giuseppe stood with Pietro in the clockmaker’s shop. He had come back for his old fiddle, while Hannah and Frederick had gone with Madame Pomeroy and Yakov to fetch her trunks from the hotel. Reverend Grey had gone for the police, and none of them wanted to be there when they arrived.

“You can’t go,” Pietro said in Italian.

“You’ll be fine. The reverend is a good man. He’ll protect you.”

“I want to go with you.”

“I wish you could.” Giuseppe looked down at the old fiddle. It seemed unnecessary to hold on to it when he had the green violin, but it felt like a betrayal to leave it behind. Like abandoning an old friend. He needed to make sure it was cared for. “You take this,” he said, and handed it to Pietro.

“But it is yours.”

“I want you to play it.”

Pietro accepted the instrument, breathing out slowly. “Thank you.”

Giuseppe patted him on the back. “You head on down to the Old Rock Church now.”

Pietro nodded, eyes on his shoes.

“Thank the reverend again for me.”

“I will.”

A sudden surge of affection swelled up inside Giuseppe’s chest. “Come here,” he said, and pulled the little boy into a tight hug. “Good-bye, Pietro.”

“Good-bye.”

Pietro pulled away and started for the front door, turned back to Giuseppe for a moment, and then ran out of the shop. Giuseppe smiled, took one last look around, and stepped into the street.

His walk to the docks felt strange. His steps were no different, the cobblestones the same underfoot as they had always been, the avenues and the storefronts and pedestrians all familiar. And yet his steps were not the same, because they were his last over each spot, each corner. He was already saying good-bye to the city; the closer he drew to the docks, the more of it lay behind him, left forever.

Each corner held a memory, or at times layers of memory like cross-blown winds, tugging him in different directions. The city had become his home. He had lived here longer than he had lived in Italy. But his brother and Marietta were not here, and though he would miss the city, he missed them more. So he tried not to let himself stop, and made the trip to the docks without indulging the past that pulled on him from all sides.

Gilbert Square bustled, alive and shining in the evening light. Giuseppe took it in and waved at the hotel, the Opera House with its giant clock, the Archer Museum, at all of it and none of it in particular. He waved to the city and said good-bye.

The city responded by carrying on the way it always did, traffic moving forward uninterrupted, without slowing, as if it were trying to
demonstrate its permanence and show him that it would still be there if he ever wanted to return. That promise was the best and only thing he could ask of it.

He turned toward the docks and his footsteps soon thunked hollowly on the pier. The steamship waited at the far end, dignified and patient. Giuseppe marveled at its height and breadth as he drew near. White plumes of steam already rolled from the smokestacks, as though the ship were taking deep breaths to test its lungs before diving into the sea.

Giuseppe had no possessions but the clothes he wore and the green violin over his shoulder. He found his way to the gangplank, a steep incline rising from the dock to the deck of the ship, and waited at the foot of it. Farther down the pier, longshoremen loaded crates and trunks and chests up onto the ship. Fellow passengers milled around him, wealthy men and women who appeared relaxed about the sea voyage, able to travel as they pleased. They looked down at him as though he were a rat trying to stow away. Giuseppe felt small and alone in their presence, and anxious for Madame Pomeroy to arrive. He avoided their gazes and watched the gulls circle overhead.

Some moments later, Frederick and Hannah appeared on the docks and hurried toward him.

“This is good-bye,” Hannah said, coming up to him, already starting to cry. “I can’t believe it.”

“I’ve been honored to call you my friend,” Frederick said.

Giuseppe looked at them both. “The best of friends.”

“We’ll miss you,” Hannah said.

Giuseppe would miss them as well, but in a different way than he would miss the city. A city could stay the same. The same buildings. The same streets. Not forever, but for a great long while. But Frederick
and Hannah would never again be the people they were right now, standing on the dock, wishing him farewell. Tomorrow they would wake up and be a little bit different and a little bit different the day after that, and in no time they might become people he did not recognize. Giuseppe knew it because they were already different from when he had first met them. He knew it because he was different from when they had first met him.

He cleared his throat. “So what are you going to do to make journeyman now, Freddy?”

Frederick looked at Hannah with a smile. “I have some ideas about that.”

Giuseppe let that answer suffice. “Good luck in your new position, Hannah.”

“Thank you.”

“There you are!” someone called behind them. They turned and saw Madame Pomeroy and Yakov approaching from the shipping offices. “Our luggage has already been loaded. The legal papers are signed, and I just secured passage for Giuseppe. Everything is in order. Are we all ready?”

Giuseppe nodded.

A little sob escaped from Hannah.

“There, there,” Madame Pomeroy said, and pulled Hannah into an embrace. “Take care of yourself, child. And you too, Frederick. I will commission a clockwork piece from you yet.”

“Yes, Madame,” Frederick said with a bow. “I look forward to it.”

Madame Pomeroy blinked and wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. She sniffed and turned to Yakov. “Shall we?”

He nodded, and she lifted her skirts and started up the gangplank. Then the Russian turned to Hannah.

“Like a princess,” he said. Then he, too, stalked up the narrow walkway, his large frame straining the railing of rope to either side.

Giuseppe watched them go, and then turned to his friends. “Good-bye,” he said.

Hannah rushed to him and held him tight. She said nothing, but trembled a little before letting him go and pulling away. Frederick and he shook hands, and then Giuseppe turned and took his own first steps upward.

Madame Pomeroy was waiting for him when he reached the top and stepped onto the deck. Hannah and Frederick waved to them from the pier. They kept waving while the longshoremen raced up and down the dock, hollering and letting loose the steamship’s moorings, and were waving still when the engines engaged deep beneath Giuseppe’s feet, like the earth rumbling awake. And all that time he waved back, until the ship had eased far enough into the heart of the bay that he lost sight of them.

“Giuseppe?” Madame Pomeroy called. “Come.” She led him up to the bow of the ship, past women with parasols, past crew members, stacked deck chairs, and lifeboats. From that forward position Giuseppe watched the waves smacking the prow, their infinite ranks stretching to the edges of the world. “What do you think of this, my boy?” Madame Pomeroy asked.

“It feels a lot different from the last time I was on a ship.”

“When was that?”

“When Stephano brought me over.”

Yakov dropped his gaze to the deck.

Madame Pomeroy said, “I imagine it feels quite different.”

A gust of fresh breeze off the sea caught Giuseppe, the most wild and free air he had ever tasted. The ocean glittered and rolled away from
them beneath a sky even more deep and vast. Giuseppe wondered how long and far it was until he would see the first shy hump of land peak over the horizon. After that, how long until he saw the hills of his own country, and would he recognize them? Would he recognize his brother and sister after all these years? Perhaps not. Not at first. But he would know them. They were his family.

He shifted the green violin on his back. When he first found it, he did not think it would help him escape. He did not think it would play at all that day he pulled it from the harbor, but it had played, and it had helped him escape. But it had not freed him.

Giuseppe had done that himself, chasing a dream and a memory of home. There on that great ship, with the wind, and the sun, and the future open wide, he pulled out the green violin. Madame Pomeroy and Yakov watched him. An audience of passengers gathered.

And Giuseppe played.

Frederick followed the Old Fort Road out to where the city thinned, the buildings shrank to houses of brick and stone, and gardens began to fill in the spaces between them. The large box he carried had proved to be a heavier burden than he had anticipated, and he stopped often to adjust his grip on its sides.

He came to a modest cottage with cedar shingles and several lilac bushes blooming in the front yard. The open gate invited him through, and he set the box on the ground before knocking on the front door.

Hannah’s sister greeted him. “Frederick!” she said with an openmouthed smile.

“Hello,” Frederick said. “Is Hannah at home?”

The girl nodded. “Please, come in.”

Frederick picked up the box and stepped inside the cottage. The living room and kitchen smelled of cinnamon, something baking in the oven. Hannah’s father sat up in the bed they kept out here for him, so he could be with the family during the day. Frederick bowed to him. Hannah sat at a table with her other sister, heads together over an open book and a slate.

She smiled and rose when she saw Frederick. “I’m helping her with her schoolwork.”

“You are a good sister,” Frederick said.

“I help where I can.” Hannah glanced at the box. “What’s that?”

“I’ll show you. Clear the table?”

Hannah nodded, one eyebrow raised in curiosity, and she and her sisters moved the slate and closed the book. Frederick set the box down just as Hannah’s mother walked in with a basket on her hip, full of produce from the garden.

“I thought I heard your voice, Frederick,” she said. “To what do we owe this visit?”

“Hello, ma’am.” Frederick bowed. “I was just coming to show Hannah my journeyman project.”

Hannah gasped. “It’s finished? When is your examination?”

“Master Branch presented me to the guild this morning.”

“But you didn’t tell me!”

“I didn’t want to worry you. Besides, I wanted to be all done with it when I showed you what I made.”

“Did you pass?” Hannah’s mother asked.

“Of course he passed, Mama,” Hannah said. “Didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“So you’re a journeyman now?” Hannah’s mother said.

“I am.”

“You could have your own shop,” Hannah said.

“I could,” Frederick said. “But I don’t think I will for some time yet. Master Branch will need me more and more. I think I’ll stay and work with him, at least for a while.”

Hannah clapped her hands. “Well, show us. Show us what you made.”

Frederick took a deep breath and pulled the lid from the wooden box. He cleared away the straw packaging, and lifted out the automaton that he had been working on for the last several months.

The inspiration had come from that day when Master Branch had taken him through the guildhall’s exhibition room, although he had not known it at the time. Back then, Frederick had not given much thought or attention to anything that did not seem helpful to his work on the clockwork man. But after the Magnus head had been safely returned to the museum, and Frederick had time to reflect, the answer was both simple and obvious.

He set the clockwork bird on the table. It perched on a metal branch among silver blossoms and copper leaves, modeled after a songbird he had spotted in a tree at the edge of McCauley Park. Each of its individual feathers bore the evidence of Frederick’s painstaking work and attention to detail. As with the guild’s clockwork rooster, it had jewels for eyes, and a delicate beak.

“Oh, Frederick,” Hannah said. “It’s beautiful.”

“I’ve never in my life seen anything like it,” Hannah’s mother said. She stepped aside as though to make sure Hannah’s father had a view of the table. “Look, dear. Have you ever seen anything so remarkable?”

Hannah’s father smiled.

Frederick pulled several small cards from his pocket. “These are its secret,” he said. “I got the idea from a book I read, and from my work on the looms at the orphanage.” He walked around the clockwork bird and inserted one of the cards into a little gap in the feathers at the base of the neck. He pressed a button on the wooden base, and the bird began to sing.

The sound filled the cottage, lilting and clear. Hannah’s sisters giggled and Hannah’s mother shook her head in disbelief.

“It’s magic,” Hannah said.

“There’s more,” Frederick said. “Each of these cards has a different tune. I can make as many of them as I can think of. You just swap the cards out, and the bird will sing something different. Here, Hannah. You try.” He handed her one of the cards.

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t dare. I’d break it.”

“Well, you’d better learn,” Frederick said. “I made this bird for you.”

Everyone in the room fell silent. The bird sang.

“For me?” Hannah whispered.

“Here,” Frederick said, and pressed one of the cards into Hannah’s hand. “Try this one.”

Hannah took it, but seemed reluctant and unsure.

Frederick guided her to the table. “Turn it off first.” He showed her the switch. “Now, reach in there and pull the old card out. That’s it. Now, slide this one in.”

Hannah pushed the new card in, and breathed out slowly as she took her hand away.

“There,” Frederick said. “See how easy it is? Go ahead and press the button to start it.”

Hannah put her finger to the switch.

And the bird began to whistle the song Giuseppe had played on his green violin. The song Frederick’s mother used to sing to him, and to the patients at the hospital. That song brought the bird to life in a way that Frederick could not explain. All the cards were made the same way. Frederick knew that. There should have been nothing different about this particular song, but there was. Hannah walked over to him, took his arm, and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a little hot tear behind.

Across the room, from his bed, Hannah’s father smiled. And began to tap his toe.