Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology (37 page)

It was exceptional weather that day, and the ground was not too soggy, and so we allowed ourselves to stray a little farther out into nature than usual, to enjoy the evening to its fullest. Ernest and William, in a burst of boyish sport, had broken off from the main path to play at hiding and seeking, while my father and I walked on and circled back again from the wood toward home once more.

I paused and looked at my father. “You go on ahead. I shall linger a moment for my brothers, and we will overcome you on the path home anon.”

My father did not argue, for the light of sunset was still good and warm with orange and crimson hues, and he trod on slowly.

“Boys,” cried I, clapping my hands for their attention. “Come away now, toward the house. Father shall not wait for you in this footrace!” I was, of course, only teasing, but I heard nothing but birds in the trees and the wind in the leaves.

A flock of birds startled out of a tree some ways away, within view but not quite walking distance, and I watched them go. I felt my eyes drawn rather strangely to a gap in the tree-line, as though some unknown beacon called to my attention. After a few moments, I indeed saw something most peculiar: there came a great, hulking thing, shaped like a man, half-running, half-limping through the wood.

This creature was somewhat obscured by evening shadows, its skin appearing mottled and patchwork in color and texture. Its gait was powerful as that of a mighty animal, perhaps some jungle hunter, but it was of an awkward frame and seemed unevenly formed, and thus it appeared to lope along with great strength behind an uneven stride.

At that first moment, I was struck by the profoundly unusual sight this man-creature made. It was majestic, even though not in the same way that other wild animals in their natural habitats appear to be; but it was, above all, very strange to see. I wondered if it were some hairless bear come down from the wilderness of the mountains. It was not; I was fooling myself. I determined that it must be some remote, forest-dwelling man with a giant’s birth deformity to account for his size and shape.

By the time I had reached this conclusion, the thing had passed into the cover of trees once more, and I was quite as alone as I had been before. Nonetheless, a shiver ran down my spine after it had vanished from view, and I wondered about the sense of foreboding in my stomach. I called out to my brothers again, hoping they were nearby.

“Ernest! William! It is time to go up to the house. Come along immediately!”

There was no answer but my own faint echo and the rustling of trees. My heart pounded as I began to wonder where my brothers were. In my rising concern, my mind began to fill with possibilities grim and distressing, and I could not stop seeing the strange man-thing in my head.

I tried to slow my breathing, advising myself that calm was the only way to proceed. I then moved about, in search of a higher vantage point where I might better see the lay of the land, and determine if my young brothers were sneaking about and hiding to give me a scare, perhaps. As I was still young and strong, and there was no one to declare me unladylike for doing so, I opted to climb a nearby boulder that would boost my height sufficiently to see beyond the trees.

Visibility was slightly better from on high, I found, though the shadows of dusk were filling the empty spaces of the world around me with rapid succession, and I knew that, before long, I should not be able to see much else, and the only light would be that of our house down the way.

It was then, in the dying rays of sunset, that I saw the shape of the huge thing I had seen mere minutes before upon the hillside, making its way down the shore of the lake, and just a little ways beyond its steady strides was a much smaller shape, digging in the sand, which I knew then in my heart to be my dear little brother, William.

My breath stuck in my throat as I watched from my perch. I wanted to scream, or climb down and run to them, to protect my William, to save him from what could only be some kind of attack . . . But as I watched, the giant of a man made no aggressive movements. He approached slowly, like a curious dog, and William seemed unbothered by the thing’s presence. Perhaps I was wrong, and William was not in danger. Perhaps it would be all right . . .

The strange-skinned giant paused some distance away from little William, and I saw my younger brother start to turn to look back and stop suddenly, the man-creature having spoken something sharply, with one wild hand outstretched in a halting gesture. I saw William give a kind of shudder that could only be attributed to fear, and my heart leapt in my chest.

There was no doubt in my mind that William was very afraid, and the strange creature did not mean him well. I instantly set in motion to run down to the shore and
do
something to stop the stranger from harming my brother.

These thoughts came blindly and too quickly to be individualized in my mind; one moment I was stock-still upon the rock in terror, and the next, I had dropped onto the ground, running before I had even registered what I had done. Excitement and urgency rushed through my veins, my breath deepening as I ran through the woods over the uneven ground. I ran, for my brother was very probably in danger, and I could not afford to stop and think.

I soon emerged from the trees onto the rocky shoreline of the lake and found myself quite alone.

The giant stranger had vanished, but so had my little brother. My stomach lurched, and I stood still, listening for any sign of which way they had gone. Hearing nothing but the gentle breeze moving over the water, I could not bear to be still. I moved quickly to the nearest sturdy tree and, without hesitation, I began to climb.

Even with my skirts about my legs, I had climbed trees during many games and adventures over the years. I was glad that Father had gone ahead, for he’d never have allowed it, but I did not care. I knotted my dress to one side and hitched it up a little, to better access the branches at my disposal with all four of my limbs.

Thus, I carefully hoisted myself up into the branches of the tree, with only mild difficulty and discomfort due to my apparel. As quickly as I dared, I raised myself up through the tree’s boughs to peer out through the smaller branches. I pulled myself higher and higher, no time to be wasted, and then, rather suddenly, a voice pierced the otherwise quiet evening air.

“Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Father! Someone!”

It was Ernest’s voice. I was filled with sudden relief at hearing him so nearby, but he took me by complete surprise. Thus startled, I twisted too quickly and lost my footing. Before I could catch myself, I fell from the tree to the hard ground below with a sick thud.

I landed mostly on my back, the wind utterly knocked out of me, and knew without a doubt, looking back up at the tree, that it must have been a drop equivalent to that of falling from the balcony on the second story of our home. I had scrambled quite high into the branches in my desperation to get a better view of where William could be. Losing my grip had been a dire misfortune.

My head rang with a momentary loss of hearing from the shock of the impact, and I fought to regain my breath, my amazement at having survived such a fall causing my heart to beat rather wildly in my chest. First, I leap from high rocks to go running off into the woods without pause, and then I climb two stories into a tree, only to fall and undoubtedly break my back? What had gotten into me? And where had poor William gone?

I gasped for breath and tried to bring myself to an upright position, and a thought occurred to me. I rather ought to be in a great deal of pain. Perhaps it was shock that kept me from truly feeling the fall, but then, I wondered why I had not fainted. I managed to sit up with some stiffness, but no real pain, whereupon I began silently to thank God for His protection.

I stopped praying abruptly when I found that my right shoulder had dislocated entirely. My right arm was bent at a sick angle, like that of a china doll after having been flung across the room by a child in a tantrum, and yet I felt no real pain, just a kind of dull strain or throbbing in my fingertips.

I stared at it in newfound disbelief, and without thinking, I took hold of it and rotated it back into place in one slow, smooth twist. I felt the elbow joint click into place, and noted some resistance still at my shoulder. With a bizarre sense of calm, I gave a sharp tug at my upper arm, and felt it reconnect with a soft pop.

I was quite sure that as a child I must have suffered injuries before. I had never experienced this sort of . . . anatomical phenomenon.

When Ernest emerged from the trees some yards away, I was sitting on the ground, staring at my lightly skinned hands, which had scraped on the tree bark no doubt, and there was dirt all over my skirts.

“Elizabeth! Are you well?” Ernest rushed to my side and helped me up carefully, as though I had the same fragile bones as a songbird.

“I am well,” I assured him, dusting myself off with only a slight tremor of nerves in my voice. “I simply lost my balance on the uneven ground. I have been waiting for you, and Father went on ahead to the house. Where is William?”

Ernest looked pale. “I have lost him somewhere, I fear. We were playing at hiding and seeking, and I had him a few times, but then he hid so well I could not find him again. I sat and called for him, ’til I thought I might go hoarse, but he never came. When it got darker, I thought I better find you and Father. Oh, Elizabeth, what will we do?”

I embraced my brother. “We must stay calm.” I thought about what I had seen, the man-creature and the unmistakable shape of little William.

“I hope he was not so stupid as to stray into the lake,” added Ernest breathlessly.

“William is an excellent swimmer,” I managed to say, turning this way and that to ensure that the giant was not lurking nearby.

 “What should we do?” Ernest’s fear was beginning to amplify, and thus I knew I must play the calm one.

“Perhaps he has already returned to the house,” I suggested, anxiously. “Let us go there and if he is not home, Father will send a search party. We will find him, Ernest. We will find him because we must.”

We hurried back the way we had come, and were nearly in the safety of the grounds of our home when the front door was flung wide and a parade of servants and neighbors spilled out onto the lawn.

“Thank Heavens you found Ernest,” my Father cried, embracing us both. “But tell me, was there any sign at all of our William?”

I felt the anxiety and guilt of having seen William, but not having told of it, bubble up into my chest and throat, and I felt tears begin to form in my eyes. This was apparently answer enough, for soon the searching party was on its way, torches and lamps lighting their way in a macabre procession towards the woods. Ernest and I were ushered inside by the servants, there to be wrapped in blankets against the chill of the outdoors and drink hot tea to soothe our nerves.

My tears, I will confess, were not solely for the yet unknown fate of our William, nor were they for the unidentified giant whose appearance I kept hidden from the search party. They were tears shed for both of these and yet one more: the strange occurrence whereupon I had fallen from the tree without a scratch, and had certainly fixed my own broken arm without hesitation or pain. I felt lost and conflicted, and wished more than anything that Mother was alive to calm me from my panic.

When the search party returned nearly at dawn, I raced downstairs to hear what there was to know, but the tears and sour faces were verdict enough. My father bade me go to my rooms lest I fall down in hysterics at the sight of my poor brother’s body, but I was determined to lay eyes upon William once more. They laid him out on a table, pale as fog and adorned with bruises about his neck and face. He was quite dead.

Why, I thought, had I been able to fall from a tree and be unbroken, when my poor baby brother was doomed to helplessness against an unknown assailant?

No, not entirely unknown. I thought of the long-limbed giant of a thing I had seen, and knew precisely what had transpired. No doubt William had spoken to it in a friendly way—for the boy had never feared anything but his father’s disapproval, and God—and then surely these markings on poor William’s thin neck were proof of the vile creature’s unreasonable wrath. It must have been like a wild animal striking out in defense, reasons for murder otherwise unknown and unknowable.

My heart ached for William, so suddenly taken away, and I felt a gnawing pain for thinking I could have done something to prevent it. If I had survived the fall from the tree, I may have been strong enough to stop the giant stranger from attacking my baby brother.

I was numb with grief, tears spilling down my cheeks. “This is my fault, all my fault. I have killed my darling boy!”

“No, how could it be?” cried Ernest.

My father embraced me and bade me not take the blame for so foolish an idea. He said that he would write immediately to Victor and demand his return to the family home for the imminent burial of poor William. What I heard him say to Ernest as I went up the stair would have startled and excited me any other day, but it merely rolled off of me as rain from a leaf: “We must marry Elizabeth and Victor immediately. As soon as he returns. Our family cannot take any more losses; we must heal these wounds with a wedding.”