Steamborn (10 page)

The girl wasn’t nearly so reserved. “That’s so nice,” she said as she hung her head. “I should have thought of it.” She took a deep breath and had a broad smile for Jacob when she looked up, even with the tears in her eyes. “Wait here, will you? And put that silver back in your pocket.”

“But I need to—” Jacob stopped talking when he remembered Bobby again. Bobby had been fast, and a good Cork player, and now he was laid up with gods only knew what kind of injuries.

The girl shook her head. “In your pocket.” She disappeared into the back room.

Jacob stared at the Cocoa Crunch piled up in the counter display. It looked better than what he and Alice had shared. He hoped so much that she was okay. She had to be okay. His thoughts returned to his nightmare and he shivered.

The girl came back into the front with two enormous paper bags in either hand. “Here, you take this to the kids.”

“I can’t pay for this,” Jacob said, his voice quiet.

The girl leaned over the counter until her brown eyes were level with his. “I won’t let you pay for this.” She stood up and pushed the bags toward Jacob.

“Thank you,” Jacob said, pocketing his silver. “Thank you so much.” He gathered the bags up in his arms. He could scarcely comprehend the girl’s generosity. People could be kind in the Lowlands, but no one could afford to be
that
generous. He kept both arms wrapped tightly around the bags as he made his way back to the hospital.

Someone screamed again as Jacob paused in the entryway, and he felt foolish for thinking candy would help anyone. The kids though … It might help them a little. He stood up straighter and walked through the open front doors. The bloody sheets were no longer strewn across the ground, but small wet stains betrayed where they’d been.

Jacob walked up to a small wooden table and set the bags down. He opened the first and could barely contain his surprise. He knew the bags had been heavy, but inside was enough Cocoa Crunch to feed fifty people. He unrolled the other bag and found an enormous pile of Bitter Bears. Jacob frowned. Kids didn’t like Bitter Bears—if they had any sense, at least—but adults loved the awful things. The candy store clerk had been thinking even more than he had.

“What’s that?” a nurse asked, stepping up beside Jacob.

“It’s, uh, I brought it for the kids.”

She peeked into the bags and then looked at Jacob. “You brought this? Just for …” She looked around the room slowly. There was an old man slumped over in the corner beside a bed with a young girl. Bobby was along the other wall, and there wasn’t an empty bed to be seen in the place. “That’s very nice of you.”

“It’s stupid,” Jacob said. “They’re all hurt, and I just brought candy.” He felt even more stupid as he looked at Bobby’s bandaged head again. “Stupid.”

There was a pressure on his shoulder, and he looked up at the nurse. “This was not stupid.” Jacob didn’t know why it looked like the nurse was going to cry again. He hadn’t seen anyone new come into the hospital.

The nurse grabbed Jacob and hugged him. “Thank you, thank you. This was not stupid.”

Jacob wasn’t sure how to react, so he kept his arms stiff at his sides and looked around the room awkwardly until the nurse finally let go.

“Go take some to your friend,” the nurse said. “Bobby said he knows you. I’ll pass out the rest. I’ll check with the doctor. I know some candies are bad with pain medicine, but I’ll take care of that.”

Jacob watched her shuffle around the room for a moment, handing out little round Bitter Bears to the adults. A kid took some too, and Jacob figured he must have been hit in the head pretty hard to be eating the things. Jacob took a deep breath and walked over to Bobby’s bed.

“Hey, Bobby,” he said.

Bobby slowly turned his head so his uncovered eye was looking at Jacob. “You made it.”

Jacob nodded. “What about …” Jacob started to say, but he had to gather himself to ask. “What about Reggie?”

Bobby nodded. “He made it. Not a scratch on him, either.” Bobby pointed at the bandage covering his right eye and the side of his head. There was a faint red patch bleeding through. “I wasn’t so lucky.”

“You got a scratch?” Jacob asked, trying to lighten Bobby’s mood.

Bobby smiled a little. “Yeah, you could say that. Doc stitched my ear back together, but it’s never going to look right. My eye’s okay too. When I got hit, I couldn’t see. Doc says it was just all the blood.”

Jacob nodded, trying not to remember the blood, and glanced at the little boy sleeping in the corner. He had fresh bandages where his hand used to be. Someone, maybe his mother, stared at him from her seat beside the bed. Her shoulders were slumped, her hair matted and messy.

“I know,” Bobby said, drawing Jacob’s attention away from the boy. “It could have been a lot worse.”

“It’s not much,” Jacob said as he handed Bobby a small square wrapped in twine, “but there’s some for everyone.”

“Crunch?” Bobby asked as something approaching a real smile appeared on his face. “From a city shop?”

Jacob nodded. “Right down on the corner. They gave me more than I could pay for and then didn’t let me pay for anything.”

“My dad used to tell us no one in the city cared about anyone but themselves,” Bobby said before he took a bite of the Cocoa Crunch.

The rich smell of chocolate and toffee hit Jacob, and he realized he was hungry. Jacob watched the nurse disappear into one of the back rooms. The loudest scream quieted down before the nurse reappeared. She smiled at Jacob and held up a bag of candy. He was glad to see it was doing some good, however small.

“There are good people here,” Bobby said, watching the nurse enter another room. “Dad was wrong.”

“Charles says there are good people everywhere,” Jacob said. He paused before continuing. “And bad people. People will always be people. So, where’s Reggie?”

“Out with Alice, looking for you,” Bobby said as he stuffed another bite of Cocoa Crunch into his mouth. “I tried to tell you, but you ran off.” He stared at Jacob as he chewed, just waiting.

“Alice?” Jacob asked when his mind finally processed Bobby’s words. “Alice is okay? Why didn’t you tell me that first!”

“I thought it would be funnier if I waited until she was standing right behind you.” Bobby smiled and finished his candy.

Jacob spun around. Alice was close enough to touch. Her gaze lingered on the boy who had lost his hand. There were tears in her eyes as she looked around the room full of wounded kids, until she saw Jacob. Jacob only hesitated a moment before wrapping Alice up in a bear hug, blinking away his own tears.

“You’re here,” she said, squeezing him until he thought his ribs might crack.

“I am,” Jacob said, hugging her tight before letting her go. He didn’t like seeing the tears in her bright blue eyes.

Alice stared at Jacob. “We were looking for you. I didn’t know if you made it. You ran off after Charles, and then the walls fell. They weren’t just breached, Jacob. They
fell!”

“Samuel helped me,” Jacob said, keeping his eyes on floor. “I came back on the steambike with Charles.”

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Alice said before she briefly hugged Jacob again.

“Where’s my hug?” Reggie asked through a mouthful of Cocoa Crunch.

Jacob smiled at the taller of the two brothers. “I’m glad you guys made it. I’d hate to see the team broken up so soon.”

“We’re a team now?” Bobby asked. “Not sure how good my aim will be with this bandage on.”

“Just heal up,” Jacob said. “We’ll have plenty of time for Cork once you’re up and about. Where are you staying?”

“We’ll be here for a few days at least,” Reggie said. “Doc says Bobby has to stay off his feet until they’re sure he didn’t get any venom exposure.”

“I’m over at the Midnight Inn with my parents,” Alice said.

“Right off City Square?” Bobby asked.

Alice nodded. “We can’t afford it, if that’s what that look is for. My father’s cousin owns it.”

“We’re staying with Samuel’s uncle,” Jacob said. “It’s on the other side of the sweets shop. You can’t miss it.”

Bobby grimaced and held his hand up to his head. “Sorry, I think I need to lie down.”

“Of course, of course,” Alice said. “We’ll leave you alone.”

“We’ll be here if you need us,” Reggie said.

Jacob looked up at him. “I’m glad you made it.”

“Me too,” Reggie said with a small smile.

“I have to tell my folks I found you,” Jacob said. Then he lowered his voice. “And I have an idea for that boy who lost his hand.” He walked back toward the front door with Alice.

She nodded. “I think I’ll stay here a while.”

“You’re okay?” he asked.

She reached out to hug him again and nodded into his shoulder. “I am, but these kids …”

“I know.” Jacob almost asked if she wanted to come back with him, but he knew she’d want to stay and help in the hospital if she could. “Come and find me later?”

“I will,” she said. She slowly released Jacob and they parted ways.

Jacob heard one of the doors slide open behind him, but he didn’t turn his attention away from the metal spring he had stretched out between his hands. The brass cylinder that encased the spring reminded him of a small piston. It was hard to get a grip on it without the right gloves, but his fingernails held on well enough.

The metal loop at the end of the spring-loaded cylinder slid over the threads of a screw. Jacob sighed as he released the tension. He grabbed a threaded nut from the same jar he’d taken the screw from and hand-tightened the whole assembly into place. With the fifth paring in place, the contraption finally took shape.

“What are you working on there, Jacob?”

Jacob didn’t have to turn around to know it was Charles. He leaned back and stared at the webwork of brackets and springs and screws. “I saw a kid in the hospital that lost his hand.”

Charles leaned over while Jacob topped all the screws with a brass cap and began tightening them with a wrench. “So you’re making him a new one?”

Jacob slammed the tool against the bench and clenched his hands together. “I can’t make him a new one; he
lost
his
hand.
I just … I just want to help.”

“Let me take a look,” Charles said as he picked up the pile of black webbing and brass fittings. He pulled at the base of each cylinder and nodded until he got to the thumb. “This one’s a bit too easy to move. He’ll drop whatever he’s trying to pick up if it’s heavy.”

Charles set the hand back onto the workbench and started digging through one of the saddlebags on his bike. “Ah, here we are. Change that thumb spring out for this.”

Jacob took the thicker cylinder from Charles’s hand and looked it over. He tried to pull the spring out with his fingernail, but it wouldn’t budge. “Too tight.”

Charles shook his head. “Nonsense. Take that other spring off.”

Jacob did while he half watched Charles pull a flat tool out from under the bench. He slid it into the vise mounted beside Jacob, tightened it, gave it a shake, and then nodded.

“Now,” Charles said, “you be careful when you use one of these. That spring has a lot of power. You keep your eyes away from it when you use a tensioner.” Charles picked up the hand after Jacob removed the smaller spring with a sharp snap.

Charles fastened a clamp on one end of the hand, and adjusted the length of the tensioner with a wheel on the side before setting a second screw into an isolated clamp. “Push that bar down.”

Jacob leaned slightly on the wooden handle sticking out of the tensioner. The lone screw slid forward and stopped when it was even with the thumb bracket. “Perfect, pull that handle in and let’s see that spring.”

Jacob put the handle back in place and then slid one of the metal loops onto either screw.

Charles bent down and squinted before nodding. “You see how it’s set between the threads? That’s how you want it.” Charles pulled the handle, and the spring whined as it stretched out the length of the hand. “If you miss the threads, it’s more likely to come right off the screw without catching.”

Jacob slid the thumb bracket over the tensioned screw at the end of the cylinder, and Charles began tightening the whole assembly.

“That should do it.” Charles lifted the mechanical hand as Jacob released the tensioner. The hand curled into a fist as it slid off the tool. Charles stared at the hand and slowly raised his eyes to Jacob. “It’s a magnificent design. Simple but effective. Did you sketch it out?”

Jacob shook his head.

“All in your mind?”

“It just made sense. It works like a real hand. Mostly.”

“How do you open it?” Charles asked.

Jacob was pretty sure Charles could tell and was just humoring him. “Turn the big knob.

Charles lowered a lens on his glasses and turned the hand over. He twisted the brass knob on the back of the wrist, and Jacob watched the line of gears mesh and twist, easily opening the hand. “Magnificent.”

Jacob sat up a little straighter, unable to stop himself from smiling.

“If you put a glove over this, one would scarcely know it was mechanical.”

It sounded like Charles was talking about hiding the hand. Jacob wasn’t sure why at first, but then he asked, “Do you think people will make fun of him for it?”

Charles nodded. “Not for this hand, mind you, but just for being different. It’s the way of the world.”

Jacob thought back to all the horrible things his classmates had said to him when his dad first got sick and couldn’t join them for Cork on family day. His dad had just started having trouble breathing. People could be mean, and some of the kids he knew were the worst. Jacob’s hand clenched into a fist until he remembered something else Charles had said.

I have no use for cruelty.

He watched Charles for a moment while the old man poked and prodded at the bindings on the glove and checked each gear in the mechanism. Charles eventually smiled and looked up.

“Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“Really?” Jacob asked.

“Well, except for the thumb spring, but you already fixed that.”

Jacob smiled and took the hand from Charles. “You don’t think it’s silly?”