Clockwork Twist : Waking (9 page)

“They didn't even try to take him back,” Arabel said, her gaze distant.

“What did they want with me?” Twist asked. “I'm not important.”

“It seems that Jonas got a look at you in Venice,” Arabel said. “He admitted to telling Quay that he saw you, and got a vision of you in Nepal, fixing the clockwork princess.  Quay thought she'd be worth a fortune so they left Venice right away and hid in the cloud bank, heading for Nepal and plotting the whole time to steal you from us.”

“They seemed to think they could get you to fix the girl for them,” Zayle said.

“Well that was a bad guess,” Twist said bitterly. “You might be pirates too, but at least you never attacked me,” he muttered.

“I told you, we're not pirates,” Arabel said sharply.

“My mistake,” Twist said lifting a hand defensively. “The world seems to be full of them.  No matter where I go, I always find myself surrounded by pirates!” he added, holding his head in his hand with a weary expression on his face.

“Poor Twist,” Arabel said, barely stopping herself from reaching out to pat him.

When Twist and his companions left Halil's house, Twist was once again showered in thanks by the family.  Try as he might, none of them let him refuse it.

“Every time I see the sun,” Halil said to him on the doorstep, “I will know it is because of you, Mr. Twist.”

Benny decided to accept the family’s offer to let him stay with them until he could secure passage back to England.  In the end Twist had no choice but to leave the house with the family’s undying gratitude and admiration.  Arabel and Zayle took him through the winding backstreets of the city, to the airship docks along the shore of the Caspian Sea.

Dr. Rodés insisted on giving Twist a look once he got back on board the
Vimana
, but found nothing that a good meal and a night's sleep couldn't fix.  Heedless of the advice, Twist immediately took his clockwork tools out of his luggage and set to work, mending his pocket watch.

While the airship pulled back into the thin clouds over the southern tip of the Caspian Sea, sailing quietly through the cold night air, Twist was totally absorbed with cleaning the tiny pieces of the watch.  His mind reveled in the calm and quiet of his work, after everything it had just been through.  Somewhere over the Durrani Empire, fatigue set in hard and unannounced.  Twist awoke the next morning, hunched over the desk in his cabin with his tools still in his hands, and still dressed in Halil's old clothes.  Sometime during the night, someone had left a blanket draped over his shoulders.

When he looked out the windows, he saw nothing but sandy brown desert and huge, jagged, dry mountains below.  The sky around the ship was clear and empty under the blazing sun.  From the air, the land below looked inhospitable and desolate.  For the first time that he could remember, Twist was thankful to be in the air, high above and out of reach.

It was Zayle who came to check on him that morning.  Twist was putting the last piece of his watch back into place when Zayle knocked on his door and then let himself in.

“Hey, you fixed it already?” Zayle said as Twist snapped the back of the clock closed.

Twist held the watch up to his ear and closed his eyes.  The tiny clockwork heart beat steady and calm, as if nothing had ever been wrong. “Yes I have,” Twist said, smiling.

“What do you see when you touch that watch, anyway?” Zayle asked.

“It's mine,” Twist said. “I only see my own memories.”

“Isn't that kind of boring?” Zayle asked, as Twist slipped the watch back into his pocket.

“Sometimes, it's the only way I can be sure which feelings are mine,” Twist said as lightly as he could.

“I wish I had a magic power,” Zayle said with a huff.

Twist looked to him quickly. “No, you don't.”

“Ara's is nice,” Zayle said back, his arms crossed. “Well, sometime it doesn't give her enough information, but it doesn't give her any trouble.”

“Well, she's lucky then,” Twist said, trying to bite back the bitterness in his voice.

“I just think it would be fun,” Zayle said with a shrug. “Are you coming to lunch, then?” he asked brightly.

“I missed breakfast again, did I?” Twist asked, reaching for his short, black coat.

“Yep,” Zayle said with a nod.

Shrugging into his coat, the scent of the Caspian Sea wafted around him.  Though Halil's family had graciously dried out his clothes, they still had a scent of salt water and silt to them.  Twist tried to ignore it as the crisp wind of high atmosphere met him on deck.

As Twist walked to lunch with Zayle, a quiet, haunting fear crept into the back of his mind.  He knew that Jonas was on board, but he hadn't seen him yet.  He'd only laid eyes on him twice, and both instances had been both brief and staggering.  He couldn't remember what the other man even looked like, except that he had Arabel's eyes.  To Twist's relief, though, Jonas wasn't present for lunch.

“Your brother is on the ship, isn't he?” Twist asked Arabel when the conversation had slowed for a moment.

“Oh yes, he is,” Arabel said. “He's just...” her voice fell away, her gaze distant.

“He's avoiding people,” Dr. Rodés said. “He's worse than ever, if you ask me.”

“Philippe, please,” Capt. Davis said. “Give him some time.”

“He's had months,” Dr. Rodés said. “And years before that.”  The others looked at him silently. “I'm only saying what you're all thinking.  He's not getting better.”

“The boy is hurt,” Aazzi said, her rich voice softer than usual. “So much so, that he cut himself off from his own family.  He needs compassion, not ridicule.”

“He was so sweet when he was young,” Arabel said, as if to herself. “I miss him.”  The others looked away from her, each one quiet.

“So, how far are we from Nepal, then?” Zayle asked, pulling the group back into the light of day.

Twist asked nothing more about Jonas for the remainder of the meal.  Once everyone was finished, Twist returned to the open second deck with his book in hand.  As he stepped into the light, the skin at the back of his neck began to tingle.

Lying on his back on the deck, his arms open at his sides and one knee bent casually in the cool air, a young man gazed up at the sky beyond the front edge of the balloon.  His golden hair was cut short, standing away from his scalp in needle-like points, and his European skin was tanned from too much time in the sunlight.  His form looked light but strong, and just as agile as Arabel's.  He wore a simple white shirt and brown leather trousers, with high boots, and black-lensed goggles nestled in the front of his pointy hair.  There was also a metal contraption over his ears that Twist couldn't identify, which looked something like complicated earmuffs made of brass coils and thin wires.  They seemed to be connected to a small metal box that lay beside him on the deck by a thick rubber covered cord.

While Twist looked at him, his feet continued to take him slowly closer, as if compelled by some outside force.  Twist's heartbeat sped quickly as a general sense of unease throbbed through him, and the buzzing at the back of his neck grew steadily more noticeable.  No matter how Twist told himself to stop or turn away, his feet kept drawing him closer.  The young man's uncovered, unblinking green eyes—or were they blue?—stole Twist's full attention.

For the first time that he could remember, the desire to touch another person burned to life in Twist's heart.  Staggered by this, Twist's fear grew sharply.  He approached to within only a few steps, before Jonas reached back to rub at his neck.  In the flash of an instant, his eyes flicked to Twist.  Twist felt a shock of fire at the back of his neck and he struggled to keep his footing.

“Shi—!” Jonas hissed in the same moment.  He sat up like a shot, turning away from Twist and pulled the contraption off his ears.  He was breathing hard, still holding his neck, as he pulled the black goggles on over his eyes. “What do you want?” he snapped.

“I'm sorry,” Twist muttered, blinking his vision clear of the tiny star-like motes that seemed to swim in the air before him. “I didn't mean to...”

Jonas turned to him with an unreadable expression, his eyes hidden behind the black lenses.  Twist pulled his gaze away instantly, but he felt no reaction as he had before.

“Can you … see through those?” Twist asked cautiously, glancing back to him.  He'd taken a few steps closer still when he wasn't paying attention.

“No,” Jonas said, still apparently looking right at him. “Don't come any closer,” he said, lifting a hand as Twist's slow steps made a nearby board creak ever so slightly.

“I'm sorry,” Twist said, forcing himself to step back and stop. “I can't help it,” he said, shaking his head.  The buzz at the back of his neck was reaching down his spine and up under his scalp. “Do you feel that too?” he asked, rubbing at his neck.

“What is that?” Jonas asked, shaking his head. “I feel it every time you get close to me.”

“I had hoped you might be able to explain it,” Twist said sorrowfully.

“No luck there, clock-boy,” Jonas said unkindly, seeming to look to him again.

“You got a vision from me in Venice, didn't you?” Twist asked, catching himself leaning forward.  The pull to touch Jonas's skin was becoming more and more difficult to resist, despite the fact that it was the last thing in the world that Twist actually wanted to do.

“I've never seen anything like it,” Jonas said softly, his unseeing gaze slipping away to his thoughts. “It was fractured and chaotic, and I only got a glimpse.” He turned quickly to look back up at Twist, seemingly looking him right in the eyes through the blacked out lenses. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I'm just … Twist.”

Jonas stared at him silently.  Jonas's right hand had drifted slowly up towards his goggles. “I looked in your eyes.  Twice.  And I still don't know who you are,” he said, his fingers brushing the leather strap that held his goggles in place.

“Don't!” Twist said, reaching out to stop him.  Twist realized what he was doing only a moment before he touched Jonas.  Twist was also now kneeling well within reach of him.  He pulled his offending hand away, holding it to his chest while his heart thundered.

“What is this!?” Jonas gasped, clenching his fingers into fists at his sides, his goggles still over his eyes. “Why do I keep wanting to look at you?”

Twist shook his head, all of his attention focused on not reaching out to the man so close in front of him. “We can't,” he breathed. “Last time...”

“Did you see anything, last time?” Jonas asked, not moving.

“Nothing,” Twist said. “Everything was washed out in whiteness.”

“What's going on over here?” Capt. Davis asked, walking closer.

“Nothing,” Twist and Jonas said simultaneously.  They both looked to each other suspiciously.

“Well, that sounds perfectly innocent,” Capt. Davis said, stopping beside them with a light smile on his face. “But, in case you didn't notice, the last time you two got close, you exploded.  Do you really think it's wise to try it again?”

“You know, I really didn't miss you at all,” Jonas said, looking up at him through his black lenses.

It took all of Twist's will power to get back to his feet and to take a step away. “We were just talking,” he said.

“What's going on with you two?” Capt. Davis asked.  Twist looked to him silently, pulling all meaning from his cold, steel blue eyes and stilling his form completely.

“A normal like you doesn't have a prayer of understanding either of us,” Jonas said, lying back on the deck again, one arm curled under his head.

Capt. Davis looked down at him for a moment, before he reached down and, in a flash, snatched the goggles clean off of Jonas's face.  Jonas was on his feet almost as quickly, his eyes closed tightly but his face otherwise a mask of rage.

“Not funny!” he growled. “Give those back!  Now!”

“Tell me what's going on,” Capt. Davis said, backing away and holding the goggles behind his back. “I might just know more than you think, my boy.  Maybe I could help you to understand it, yourself.”  Twist watched the two carefully, but held his tongue.

“I neither need, nor want your help,” Jonas said, his voice low but vicious as he advanced on the captain. “And I am not your boy.”

“Now, Jonas,” Capt. Davis said with false kindness, “be a good lad and stop lying.”

As Capt. Davis continued to back away from Jonas, Twist slipped closer.  He gauged his moment carefully and then reached out, snatching the goggles out of the captain's unsuspecting fingers.  Twist sprang away, behind Jonas, easily clearing Capt. Davis's reach as he swiped out at Twist and gave a startled curse.

Twist's mind flared to light with countless faces.  He saw Arabel and the rest of the crew in many different places across years of change and age.  Each one looked to him, but none saw him; not one looked in his eyes.  A deep, primal, sadness soaked into him with a level of lonesomeness that he had never imagined.  Twist snapped back to himself not a second later.

“Jonas, here,” Twist said, holding the goggles out to him at by his fingertips.

Jonas spun, lowering his gaze before he opened his eyes and took the goggles back, careful not to touch Twist when he did.  The goggles went right back on over his eyes.

“Twist, you're not helping,” Capt. Davis said with a pained smile on his face.