Cogling (7 page)

“You steal from your brother?”

“He showed up with this watch and when I tried to take it away, he balked something fierce. Then he kinda exploded. Nothing but some cogs left. I swear on the king’s head, I’m telling the truth!”

She expected the thief to laugh or call her a loon. Instead, his grey eyes darkened, narrowing to slits. Were they grey, or silver, like a hag’s eyes? She sucked breath through her teeth. Hags were always female. His irises couldn’t be silver.

Unless he was an ogre.

Impossible. His features were too human. He released her and wiped his palms across the front of his ragged brown sweater. “It got some fancy sketching on the back? Looks a bit like a starburst?”

Her gasp caught in her throat. “How do you know?”

“I seen some watches like that. Turn it over so I can look. I swear on the moon I won’t steal it from you.”

She clutched the watch to her chest. “I don’t trust you.” The metal heated beneath her palms and the engraving bit into her skin. “This is my only link to Harrison’s disappearance.”

“Did your brother start hollerin’ when you tried to take the watch away?”

Edna nodded. “I tried twice, and both times he fussed. You been spying on me?”

“I reckon he was a cogling.”

Her skin prickled. “What?”

“Cogling,” the thief repeated. “I grew up in the countryside, and there we got automation changeling worries. Some bad hags replace kids for things they make out of dreams, breath, and metal.” He rubbed his knuckles over his turned-up nose. “Hags can control bits of nature, so they can make magical items. Like…” He scratched his head, long fingers catching in his dark hair.. “They can combine different herbs, and add a bit of a dream, and they get a potion that makes your hair grow fast.”

She shivered as rainwater seeped through her clothes to her skin. “They sell their stuff to the rich folks. Necklaces and things.” Rachel’s new corset had come from a hag’s shop. The hag had enchanted it to make Rachel look more mature.

“You know where they make ‘em?”

“At home?” She squirmed against the cold ground. “The hags not in the swamp live in the south tenements. They’ve got hanging skulls and organs in bottles. I ain’t been, but I hear stuff.”

The thief smirked.

“Look, I need to find my brother. You might have plenty of time to ponder the city, but I don’t.”

He rolled to standing. Holes without patches adorned his black slacks, gray socks showing beneath. A toe poked through his worn-out boots. His stained sweater buttoned over a white shirt, the collar discolored from sweat. “Look at the back of your watch. I reckon there’s a sunburst, an’ in it what looks like a lady’s face. That’s the same symbol they put outside all their factories out in the bog waters.”

Edna sat up. “Don’t you dare push me back and run off, you hear?” When the thief stared at her from beneath his black hair, she turned the watch over. On the back, etched into the silver, shone the same design he’d described.

He tipped his head, shoulder-length hair falling over his eyes. Dirt smudged his tanned skin. “Hags steal kids to work their machines, ‘cause kids got littler hands. They replace the kids they steal with automation changelings, like what I was tellin’ you. Coglings. The things that keep the coglings goin’ is that watch. Most of the time, the parents don’t notice a problem. The hags have it so the cogling acts just like the child.”

“Harrison acted different. He was too quiet today.” The thief couldn’t be telling the truth. It was too preposterous. Too evil.

“The hags have to trap the kid’s breath in a rag and then make the metal absorb the rag. Maybe the rag didn’t work right.”

“Rumors about hags stealing children are only stories to scare people. Harrison was sick, not stolen.”

But he’d fallen apart. The real him had disappeared.

The thief grinned. “They do it in the middle of the night, an’ all you hear is the tinkling of a bell.” He grabbed his gun off the stoop.

Blood drained from Edna’s face and she squeezed her eyes shut. A bell. The thief couldn’t possibly know she’d heard a chime last night.She narrowed her eyes.

“Aha, you know I’m tellin’ the truth.”

“Wait.” Edna held up her hand. “Why not just steal the kids?”

“The police might start hunting the hags. They have to make a living selling to the humans.”

“Horrid!” The darkness within her might not be worthy of the seven Saints, but it could never be
that
disgraceful.

“That’s how the world works, luv. Not all hags are bad, but the ones who make coglings are.”

“Why can’t the hags just use coglings in the factories?” She had to find a problem with his story, had to find a simpler solution to Harrison’s disappearance. Edna nibbled on her fingernail.

“Sure, hags can make potions and cast spells, but there’s a lot of magic in those items they sell. They pull that magic from dreams. Coglings can’t dream, but kids do, a lot. That’s why they take them to the factories in the swamp. They put tracking devices in the pocketwatches so they can get them back to use again. They won’t look for this one right away, but eventually they will. They’ll come get you.”

Edna swayed, then squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t pass out, had to be strong.

“Easy to steal a blessing from a poor kid to give to a rich old woman,” the thief added. “You want your brother back? I’ll take you to the factories, for a fee.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You either believe me or you don’t.” He flared his nostrils.

“Can’t we just go to the police?” They thought she was crazy, though. Maybe she could go above that officer at the station. She gasped. “We could go to the king! If the hags are really kidnapping children, he has to stop them.”

“Ha. The police want proof, and money, and the king wants to stay oblivious. You ever see him? He wants to tax and that’s it.”

She gulped, twirling her prayer beads. The glass beads slid against each other, clinking. The boy’s answers made too much sense. “How much of a fee do you want? I don’t have a lot.” Of what she did have, she would spend it all on Harrison. Her parents would understand.

“We gotta take a train to the country, and I should have some new clothes so people don’t look at me too much. The train back, too, and you gotta pay for all that.”

“You can wear some of my father’s things.” She tried to add the prices, but couldn’t recall hearing how much a train ticket cost.

“You also gotta pay for food and lodging, and left over, I’ll take five brittins.” He held out his hand. Dirt rimmed his broken fingernails. “Name’s Ike.”

“Edna.” She shook his hand.. “I’ll pay for all that, and the five brittins besides, but I keep the money until it’s needed.”

Ike searched her face with his dark circle-ringed eyes. Edna kept her lips pursed. If she backed down, he might take advantage. He released the handshake. “When can you be off?”

“We’ll go back to my apartment and I’ll get what we need.”

His smile seemed too eager. Her chest hurt from her racing heartbeat, but she refused to doubt her decision. Every second she paused took Harrison farther from her.

“Wait. Why do the hags need to keep a tracking device on their automations?”

“Easy, luv; so they can find them and take them back. The kid is said to act weird and gets taken to the hospital. The hags at the hospital—and there’s always a hag at the hospital—whisks the automation away to make into another kid to snatch. Then the poor parents are told their wee one died. They always pick the penniless people, ‘cause they don’t have enough money for a proper burial. They never need to see the body again, so nobody revolts against the hags.”

All of those suffering families… blood drained from Edna’s head at the thought. “That’s disgusting!”

“Sure is, but that’s how the world works, luv. You want your brother back or not? “A sly light gleamed in his gray eyes, making her heart skip a beat. “Look, I know somebody who knows some stuff. I’ll take ya there. We should see her first, anyway.”

Edna wet her lips. “Who is she?” A murderer? Another thief?

“Name’s Hilda. She’s a Lady Fae, but she helps out us street urchins a bit.” His cocky grin almost made her smile.

A Lady Fae, so she’s a hag who blesses weddings and Christenings for those who don’t have much money, because those with wealth don’t trust her as much as they trust others.
“How much will she charge for a consultation?”

“Hilda doesn’t care about money. She does it outta goodness.”

“But she’s Fae!”

Ike nudged her forward. “This way.”

Edna followed Ike up the creaking, narrow stairs to the third floor of a tenement. At one of the last doors, he rapped his knuckles across the warped wood.

“It’s Ike.”

“How well do you know the Fae?” Usually, the magic kind stuck together and didn’t interact with humans, apart from business transactions. Edna studied him through the corners of her eyes, but he didn’t look Fae.

“Shh.”

Hilda opened the door with a beaming smile. She wore a long white dress with a high lace collar and her dark hair was pulled back in a bun beneath a blue kerchief. The hag appeared to be around twenty years old, but knowing the Fae, she could have been two hundred.

“Ike, luvy, a visit for me?” She closed her eyes as she smiled. “Come in, dear. You’ve brought a friend.” She opened one eye to study Edna. “A troubled friend.”

Edna shivered. “I need your help.”

Hilda motioned toward a patched sofa. “Sit, luvys, and speak. I’m here to listen.”

Edna sat toward the edge of the cushion in case she needed to speed toward the door. If the hag recognized the evil in her, Edna might have to flee. Ike leaned back and crossed one leg over the other.

The living room looked too similar to her own—plain white walls, a sofa, and a table covered with newspapers. Hags should have more magical things, like vials of potions and bowls of powder. Whenever she saw them in the streets, they seemed a world apart, hovering on the outskirts of society.

“I shall listen when you want to tell me.” Hilda leaned against the table.

Edna opened her mouth, but Ike plunged into the tale first, waving his hands while he spoke. When he finished, Hilda pursed her lips.

“I tried going to the police, but they didn’t care.” Edna’s voice emerged breathless.

“Did you know that female officers are the most important?” Hilda pulled on the cameo brooch at her throat. “Dragons respond best to virgin females.”

Ike snickered, and Edna blushed.

“Then, sometimes, if you’re close to one, they can read your mind.”

“How will that help with finding Harrison?” Edna clenched her hands.

Hilda sighed. “The future is never clear. I only see shadows of the truth, but Ike’s correct. The watch is from the factory, and it sounds like your brother was replaced with a cogling. I’ll write you specific directions of how to get there, but it’s a dangerous trip. Are you up to it?”

Edna nodded.
Is any of this for real?
She’d never expected to venture inside a hag’s home.

Minutes later, back on the streets, she licked her lips. “You’ll still help me, Ike?”

“I said I would”—he patted Hilda’s map, snug in his pocket—“for a fee.”

When they reached Edna’s tenement, she made him wait in the hallway, seated on the top step of the stairwell, while she went inside. Kneeling beside the kitchen table, she removed one of the tin cans kept underneath. Edna’s hand shook while she counted the coins of her family’s extra funds. The pile on the table looked like a fortune, whispering to her to spend it.

“Twelve brittins,” she whispered. “I’m doing this for Harrison.” Lifting her skirt, she tucked the money into the hidden pocket her mother had sewn on her petticoat. Two brittins’ worth of change she left in her coat pocket, and hung the watch around her neck. She couldn’t think about how her family might suffer without the extra funds.

From the battered desk in the sitting room, she found a scrap of butcher’s paper and a lead pencil. Edna scribbled a note to her mother, explaining what Ike had told her, and apologized for taking the coins without asking. She set the empty tin can atop the paper. Her letter might sound ridiculous, but her parents would recognize it as truth when she returned with Harrison.

Edna pulled the carpetbag out from beneath her parents’ bed and threw extra clothes into it, including a set for Harrison. From her father’s trunk, she found an extra pair of socks, pants, and a shirt.

“Come change,” she called from the kitchen. When the young man swaggered inside, she handed him the bundle of clothing. “Through that curtain in the bedroom.”

He changed while she cut a loaf of bread in half, wrapping one section in a clean handkerchief. She tucked the food into her bag.

Ike reentered the kitchen, tying his rope belt around the waist of the oversized pants. Her father’s clothes hung off Ike’s bony body. “All done.” He dropped his soiled clothes and stuffed his arms into his sweater. His elbows poked through the worn out sleeves.

If anyone in her family came home in such filthy attire, her mother would’ve thrown a fit. Edna shoved his old clothes into the corner. She should’ve made him wash before putting on her father’s stuff.