Clockwork Twist : Trick (4 page)

One of the crew stood beside the gangplank, waiting for Twist and Myra when they returned with Jonas.  He was a tall man with broad shoulders and dark, almost leathery olive skin.  His clothes were simple: a white shirt with billowing sleeves, a black vest and short black trousers with rope sandals, and a simple wide-rimmed round hat.  His dark eyes looked like they had been held in a permanent squint for his entire life, with deep wrinkles at the edges, but his face was filled with a wide smile—two teeth capped with gold to one side, under a long and sagging black mustache.  He waved to Jonas and said something on a booming, jolly sounding voice, but in a language Twist didn't know.

Jonas responded instantly in what sounded like French to Twist.  The man nodded and glanced at Twist and Myra.  Then his dark eyes fixed on Myra and his smile disappeared into a blank mask.  Jonas said something else, and Myra giggled.  To Twist's shock, she too said something happy-sounding in the bubbly language.

“What's going on?” Twist asked.

“I only told him that one of us was 'a little different',” Jonas said to Twist.  He turned back to the sailor and said something else.

The sailor nodded again and his smile slipped slowly back into place as he spoke and finally turned to walk up the gangplank, beckoning them on.  As they stepped onto the open main deck, Twist saw that the rest of the crew—apparently nine men in total—were dressed similarly to the man with the gold teeth, and each had the same darkly tanned skin and weathered appearance though they ranged wildly in age.

The youngest looked barely older than a child, while the oldest looked far too old to be climbing through the rigging with such ease and agility.  Each sailor, however, paused to stare at Myra at least once before returning to his own business.  She smiled at each of them in a friendly way, but Twist found himself drifting closer to her unconsciously as his apprehensions grew.

It only took a few moments for the sailors to throw off the mooring lines and start up the steam engine, while some of the huge white sails were unfurled to hang limp in the light wind.  As the ship pulled away from the docks and slipped out into the harbor, Twist, Jonas, and Myra stood together on one side to watch the other ships glide past.  The shouts of orders and calls of observations swam over the ship as the sailors all readied her for the open water beyond the harbor, but Twist couldn't understand a single word.

“Myra,” he asked her softly as she stared in wonder at the ships they passed, “what did you say to that sailor, earlier?  Was that French you were speaking?”

“Was it?” Myra asked him back curiously. “You mean, it wasn't your language?”

Twist stared back at her as he struggled to figure out what she meant. “You spoke to the children in Bombay, as well.  What language was that?”

“I don't know,” Myra said with a shrug. “I just talk to people.  I never had trouble speaking to anyone after I left my first body and got into this one.”

“You know, English is kind of modern, now that I think about it,” Jonas said, turning to them both. “You shouldn't know it if you've been stuck alone in Nepal all that time.”

“How in the world did I never notice that?” Twist asked suddenly.

“It's not important,” Myra said with a flippant wave of her clockwork hand. “The important thing is that we're about to leave the harbor!”

As she spoke, the ship was beginning to slip gently out through the mouth of the harbor, and instantly began to pick up speed as it sliced its way into the rolling waves.  At first, the ship bobbed and swung wildly on the waves, but as the speed and the growl of the engine grew, the ship began to steady.  The sails were dropped and tightened one by one until the sky above the deck was filled with billowing white cloth.  Twist couldn't believe how many sails there were, or how large each one was.  The ship looked more like an airship than anything terrestrial with its tiny hull hanging under those enormous wings.

Once they were ready, the ship turned into the sun and the engines shut off.  The sails caught the wind instantly, each one full to bursting, and the ship lurched forward into sudden speed.  The hull rose to the top of the waves and skipped along them with a smooth, gliding ease that felt as natural and free as the wind itself.  Twist clung to the railing to keep balance in the sudden rush and marveled as Bombay disappeared quickly into the distant mist, far behind them now.  Myra giggled and danced happily with her arms high in the air.

“This feel like flying!” she said on a ringing voice. “Even more than really flying on an airship,” she added with another laugh.

“I told you this ship was fast,” Jonas said to her as he smiled into the sun.

Twist felt the ship turn and sway with the wind; there was nothing sharp or incongruous about its movements now.  There was a reckless and intoxicating thrill to flying on nothing but the wind itself, and it ran deep and chilling to his bones.  This was a kind of force that could only be embraced.  To do anything else would only be more dangerous.  Twist found a smile on his own face even before Myra threw an arm around his shoulders from behind and clung to him on the rushing waves.

“I can't wait to see Egypt,” she said to his ear, as if the words tasted sweet in her mouth.

Her abundant joy splashed over him in the warm sunlight and the chill grasp of the wind, and washed away every fear he had found in Bombay.  Right now, there was no one after them, and no threat on their horizon.  They had simply vanished from the streets of Bombay with no trail behind them, and their path was set.  Right now, they were free.

The ship's cargo hold was indeed full of cotton.  Huge baled cubes of it, wrapped in cheap, coarse fabric and twine, were stacked high in the deep space under the main deck.  A few porthole windows near the ceiling crossbeams let in a small amount of sunlight, while fresh air and a little more light fell in through the lattice wood that temporarily shut up the main hatch in the deck above.  A few tin lanterns hung unlit from the bases of the masts, which extended down to the rough wood floor.

“Charming,” Twist muttered.

“Cheer up, dandy,” Jonas said with a sneer as he started to climb the nearest bale of cotton.

“Brigand,” Twist shot back.

“You two are so funny,” Myra said, shaking her head.

“Come on, it's nicer up here,” Jonas called from the top of the stacked cotton.

The bales created a wide, flat platform near the ceiling, with only a few feet of space left below the hatch.  Myra gave an amused sound and moved instantly to follow him up the crude staircase of stacked cotton.  Twist shifted his bag to sit more comfortably on his shoulder and tried to be a bit more open minded as he followed after her.

He had to stoop low to walk on the top, and found that his feet sank somewhat into the lumpy, less-than-solid surface of the baled cotton.  Jonas had already found his new place, lying flat on his back and gazing up through the hatch cover at the billowing sails and sky beyond.  His arms were flung lazily out wide, and one knee was bent, with his eyes uncovered to the sky.  Twist instantly recognized the image: Jonas had been in exactly the same position—at such ease and peace—when Twist had seen him for the first time.  Knowing him better now, Twist suddenly realized how rare it was to see him at rest, or anywhere near peace.

“This is nice,” Myra declared brightly.  She sat cross-legged near Jonas, and leaned back on her arms in the soft glow that fell through the wooden lattice. “Can we sleep up here?”

“Sure,” Jonas replied.  Twist came to join them and sat down beside Myra.  To his surprise, it was actually fairly easy to find a comfortable seat among the lumpy bales.

“Oh good,” Myra said, before she looked to Twist. “This is going to be a wonderful trip,” she told him with certainty.

“I'm glad you're pleased,” Twist said, quietly relieved.

“Wait,” Jonas said, leaning up on an elbow to look at Myra. “Do you actually sleep?”  Myra looked back at him blankly and tilted her head to one side. “Well, you don't eat, and I don't think clockwork gets tired.  So, do you really need to sleep?”  Twist looked to her with hesitant curiosity.

“I need to dream as much as you do,” Myra said to Jonas, as if he should have known. “If I don't shut my eyes and rest my thoughts from time to time, I'll surely go mad.”

Jonas nodded as he looked at her, his eyes shifting into gray purples. “Well, that makes sense,” he muttered before leaning back onto the cotton.

For a while, the three of them sat together in relative silence, each one drifting off into their own private thoughts as the ship skipped deftly over the Arabian Sea.  While Twist idly pondered the nature of clockwork dreams, Myra began to sing softly to herself.  Her voice rang gently like a bell in her metal throat, murmuring a tune that Twist had never heard before, though its curling, haunting, and evocative notes made imagining all the easier.  Jonas closed his eyes and lay still, listening to her voice with a soft smile on his lips, while Twist felt previously unknown tensions drain out of his form under the subtle spell of her voice.  Like Jonas, he remained still and silent for fear of giving her any reason to end her song.

Moments passed slowly in the cargo hold, but it felt all too soon to Twist when Myra's voice dropped to silence at the end of her quiet song.  Twist glanced up to see that the sky had grown darker while he wasn't looking.  Jonas took a deep breath and opened his eyes again to look at Twist.

“Do you smell food?” he asked.  Twist took in a whiff of the cool air.

“I don't know about food, but I smell something,” he answered.

“Oh, you haven't eaten in a while, have you?” Myra asked Twist anxiously.

“That smells like kebab to me,” Jonas said, sitting up with a determined expression.

“It smells like what?” Twist asked.

“Come on, let's have a look,” Jonas said, already heading off.

Twist and Myra followed Jonas out of the cargo hold and up onto the main deck.  The sun hung just over the edge of the ocean, nestled in a bank of pale haze, while the rest of the sky overflowed with rich, twilight blue and streaming ribbons of copper cloud.  The wind had lessened slightly, but the ship continued slipping lazily from one glassy crest to the other, still under full sail.  Twist and his companions found most of the crew clustered together in the center of the deck—seated on the bare planks or on a collection of small barrels and crates—around a warm glow.

Coming closer, Twist saw that they had built a fire inside a large, black, iron pot.  There were a number of things he couldn't easily recognize, in and around the flames.  Jonas grinned at the sight and hurried his pace, greeting the sailors with a phrase Twist couldn't follow.  A few of them repeated the phrase back to him, and beckoned them closer.

“Have a seat,” Jonas said to Twist as he found a place in an open part of the circle.

Twist did as he was told, placing himself on the bare deck between Jonas and one of the crew—a huge fellow who looked down at Twist with a critical eye, from a full head and shoulder's greater height.  Twist hopefully offered a polite smile, as he edged himself slightly closer to Jonas.  The man replied with a nod, though his expression never changed.  He reached up to scratch at his thick mustache with the largest hand Twist had ever seen on a human being.

“Stop staring,” Jonas muttered softly, while Myra fit herself in between Twist and the giant sailor.

Twist pulled his gaze away to land on his own hands, clasped innocently in his lap.  When he chanced a glance back up, he saw that the man was now staring at Myra instead of him.  Most of the men around the circle were now staring at her as well.

Jonas placed the black goggles over his eyes and began to speak in a friendly sounding voice to the others, though Twist couldn't recognize a single word among the tumbling, confusing sounds.  Some of the sailors responded to him, or gave barking laughs from time to time, which Jonas joined in with, while others seemed more absorbed in whatever they were doing with the things in the fire.  To further Twist's feelings of abject isolation, Myra found her way into the conversation as well and laughed at every one of Jonas's jokes.

Twist spent his time trying to get a better look at the other sailors without appearing to stare.  Though they all shared the same dark, sun-bronzed completion, black-looking eyes, simple white-and-black clothing, and a tendency for some form of mustache or beard, each one was still drastically individual in size and age.  While the man now sitting beside Myra was easily three times his size, Twist was relieved to see that the crew's youngest-looking member—a boy of no more than fifteen, and singular for his total lack of a beard—was almost Twist’s equal in size.

The boy caught Twist staring and smiled at him in a somewhat derisive way.  Twist snapped his gaze back down to his hands, but he heard the boy say something in a questioning tone.  Jonas and Myra laughed, though they both tried to stop quickly.  Myra seemed to answer him, speaking very quickly and with a smile.

“He said you look like a ghost,” Jonas told Twist.

“That's disturbing…” Twist muttered as an old memory returned to him in a flash.

“He's just playing,” Jonas said with a dismissive shake of his head.

“No, I mean, he's the second strange young man to say that to me.”

“Do you have a tendency to associate with strange young men?” Jonas asked, sounding concerned.

Twist shot him a glare, whether Jonas could see it through his opaque goggles or not. “I met a boy from Baku on a submersible in the Caspian Sea,” Twist clarified.

“Sure, that's the best place to meet strange young men.”

“He said he thought I was a ghost the first time he saw me,” Twist said, ignoring him. “What's so bloody 'ghostly' about me, anyway?”

Jonas shrugged. “Pale skin, small stature, those chilly blue eyes, you don't talk much...  And then there's that thing you do when you get nervous, going totally still and staring daggers.” Jonas gave a shudder. “Actually, now that I think about it, you are kind of creepy.”

“Thank you so much,” Twist spat bitterly. “I'd forgotten I was such a freak for a moment there.  Good of you to remind me.”

Jonas laughed and reached out to hook Twist's neck in his arm, pulling him closer.  Twist's Sight instantly flashed into white fog that ebbed away into a deep, glowing warmth he didn't expect.

“You're so fun to bother,” Jonas said on the end of his laugh.  Though logic firmly declared the opposite, the warmth that flowed into Twist's Sight highlighted the compliment hidden in Jonas's words. “You react to absolutely everything,” Jonas added with awe and glee.

“Get off,” Twist snapped, tossing his hand off and breaking the contact.  Though the fog evaporated from his mind, the warmth lingered as Jonas laughed again.  He was silently grateful that Jonas's eyes were covered, as Twist couldn't get the smile off his own face at first.

One of the sailors said something that sounded decisive, and all of the others leaned closer to the iron pot, reaching in to pull out some of the things from the fire.  Jonas joined them instantly, with no hesitation.

“Oh, can I make you one?” Myra asked Twist excitedly.

“I'm sorry?” Twist asked as he leaned back to stay out of the fray.

“Just a second,” Myra said before she dove in herself.

A few moments later, she returned with a flat but puffy piece of bread that was charred in places, onto which she had placed what looked like lumps of some sort of spiced meat that had been on skewers in the fire, and a handful of sliced cucumber, all covered in a drizzle of white sauce.  Besides a general fire-blackened scent, none of the aromas that met his senses were in any way familiar.  However, they all somehow reminded him of the air in Bombay.

“Here,” Myra said, offering it proudly.

“Thank you...”  Twist politely took the contraption from her with bare hands.

He checked to see that all of the others, Jonas included, had created similar items.  Jonas was already taking enthusiastic bites out of his.  Twist took a steadying breath, glanced up to find a hopeful and expectant look on Myra's face, and then tried to take a modest taste.  The meat was spicy and packed with flavors that Twist had never imagined, which complemented the cool cucumber and the tangy, herb scented, salty sauce, while the bread turned out to be quite soft and tasty all by itself.

“Do you like it?” Myra asked, leaning close to him.

“Well, I...” he faltered, still struggling to process the information his tongue had gathered. “What am I eating?” he asked her finally.

“It's usually lamb,” Myra offered after a moment of thought.

“It's kebab,” Jonas answered. “Fire grilled meat on a stick, with flat-bread—Indian Naan style in this case—cucumber, and tzatziki.”

“Zad-tee-key...” Twist tried to repeat.

“Tzat-zi-ki,” Jonas corrected him. “Yogurt sauce with mint and garlic or something.  These guys are Greek,” he added as if the information helped Twist in any way.  “How do you like your first taste of the world's second favorite food?”

“I've never had this many flavors in my mouth at once,” Twist answered, examining his meal for the next best place to bite.

“Everyone likes this,” Myra said, pointing to it. “I always used to put tomatoes and onions in mine.”

“I'm sure England will learn to love it too, once they stop boiling everything and learn to cook properly again,” Jonas said before returning his full attention to his meal.

Twist didn't give up on his meal, since he wasn't sure he would get any other options on this ship.  Myra seemed to enjoy watching him eat far more than he enjoyed eating, and asked if she could make him another once he'd finished the first.  As his stomach seemed just as confused as his mouth had been, he declined her offer discreetly.

By the time the sun had set into the western horizon, leaving a deep, inky black stretched out over a sky full of drifting clouds, the fire in the pot had all but gone out and the food had totally disappeared.  It wasn't long before one of the sailors—who now all sat lounging about on the deck talking or just watching the dark sea glide by—pulled out a care-worn violin and began to play.  The sound of the strings wafted gently at first, sweeping over the deck with the silver smoke of the dying fire.  Very shortly, however, the tempo increased into a quick, playful tune.  Some smiled and clapped in time, while others began to sing along in their language.

Naturally, Myra began the dance.  Her metal feet beat out a complementary rhythm as if she knew it by heart, while her body turned and swayed to the melody.  Jonas lifted his goggles up onto his brow to see, while the sailors watched her with rapt attention and the song continued to grow with their voices, as if they were all trying to maintain the spell that had brought the clockwork dancer to life.  Her graceful, carefree movements were infectious, and soon some of the sailors came to join her, dancing around her on the open deck.  Myra positively beamed with joy and twirled between them all as she too took up the song on her ringing voice.

Twist could only marvel as he watched from his seat beside Jonas, and clapped in time absently, while he tried to memorize every moment of her joy.  He hardly noticed as Jonas leaned closer to him.

“Are you going to get up and dance with her?”

“Me?  Goodness no,” Twist said instantly, shaking his head.

“All right then.”  Jonas got to his feet.

As Myra came whirling by them again, Jonas swept into her path and took her hand in one of his, placing the other on her slender waist.  Myra seemed mildly surprised, staring up into Jonas's clever grin, but her body never lost its rhythm or grace.  Jonas led her on, spinning her through the song with a simple step, and Myra began to smile back to him as she glided effortlessly along.  A few of the sailors cheered, looking at Jonas with somewhat jealous smiles, while Twist could only stare.  The two dancers moved in perfect harmony—due almost entirely to Myra's skill, Twist could easily see—and Jonas sent her into dips and spins as their motions grew more free.  The whole time Jonas never took his eyes off of her.

Twist lost himself in the scene before him, watching his only love and his only friend dance so happily to a song he'd never heard.  As the moon peered out from behind a cloud to glint off Myra's copper skin and bathe them both in silver light, a brand-new thought bloomed slowly in Twist's mind: obvious, remarkable, and inexplicable against everything he'd ever known.  The farther he got from what he understood, the more beautiful the world became.

While all eyes were captivated by Jonas and Myra, Twist drew out his pocket watch and opened its face.  He set it carefully on the deck beside him, and held himself perfectly still, while the tiny cogs, gears, and springs soaked up the moment.