Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (41 page)

I remember Amanda said something about Shanaia living in a trailer park. For all I know, it's just a rumor, but it's all I've got. I think there's something like that down by the estuary, so that's where I go. The sign outside says, SUNNY STREAM TRAILER PARK, but it's actually a wide dusty field with rows of shabby trailers and huts, rusting cars, and sagging wires. At the entrance, I'm almost run over by a noisy old Ford. The driver gives me the finger as he drives away.

I walk down the central path, between trailers and caravans, all flaking paint and rusted metal. A little boy in green shorts stares at me, and an old man standing in his doorway raises his hand hello. Then, painted on the side of a faded pink trailer, I see THE MARTIAN ROSE.

It's tiny, not much bigger than an SUV. One wheel's been taken off, leaving it propped up on a pile of bricks and pieces of wood. All kinds of junk lie in the dirt outside: broken appliances, bits of wrecked cars, scraps of tin, broken toys, rotting planks. A basic workbench leans against one wall, scattered with springs and broken cogs and half-assembled gadgets.

As I stand there, wondering what to do, the door opens and out steps a skinny unshaven man in dirty jeans and T-shirt. He looks at me with watery eyes.

"Uh — hello," I say.

He says nothing. His hair is long and tangled and streaked with gray. He rubs his chin with a shaky hand.

"Is—um—is your daughter here?" I ask.

He turns back to the trailer and calls out,
"Shanaia!"

There's no response, and after a moment he sits on an overturned beer crate and seems to forget I'm there. I walk up to the caravan and open the door.

Inside, it's small and dark and smells like a garage.

"Shanaia?" I say. A thin strip of light spreads out from the open door. And there she is, sitting in the corner, hugging her knees. Her glasses are cracked, and she's taken off the leather jacket. Without the flying helmet, her hair hangs down across her shoulders. It's the color of polished brass.

I sit next to her. "Are you OK?"

She looks away.

"It didn't work," she says in a tiny voice.

"You know the power's down?" I say. "Nothing's working, all over town. Nothing electric. Nothing
modern."
Then I hesitate. "No, wait. There — there was a car coming out of the driveway. So actually,
some
things are working—" I trail off, suddenly unsure of myself.

She's watching me intently.

"I — I thought maybe the Reality Gun . . ." I begin to feel pretty stupid.

And then she reaches over and curls her hand around mine.

"Well, it scared the hell out of Michael Carmichael," I say. "So that's something. . . ."

"I didn't mean to do that," she says. "I just . . . He was . . ."

We sit there a while, holding hands. She leans her head on my shoulder.

"Shanaia —" I say.

She rolls her eyes. "Don't," she says. "I hate that name."

"You know, you're in pretty big trouble," I say. "They'll have called the police."

She takes a slow ragged breath. "What am I going to do?"

I think for a moment, and then I say, "What would Steam Girl do?"

"I'm not Steam Girl," she says.

The air in the trailer is thick and warm. I feel light-headed, like I imagine being drunk must feel. I reach into my pocket and pull out her flying helmet and goggles.

"Yes, you are," I say. "You're clever and courageous and beautiful. If anyone can sort this mess out, it's you."

She looks at me for a long, long time. Then leans forward and kisses me, lightly, on the lips. Lifts the helmet and slowly puts it on.

There's a moment of perfect stillness.

And then she stands up and smiles.

"Come on, then, Rocket Boy," she says, and holds out her hand.

Sofia looked out the window of her aunt's London town house, at the chimney-sweep spiders clattering along the slate rooftops, their glass abdomens full of ash. Her lip curled.

"Are you feeling unwell, Sofia?" inquired Lady Obermann.

"Oh, no," said Sofia, standing and smoothing out her skirts—her favorite, a soft rose color, covering a simple dress of sprig muslin. "The air is wonderfully refreshing."

Lady Obermann sniffed. "Excellent. I do so dislike illness in young people." When Sofie didn't respond, she continued. "I believe I spotted your cousin Valerian downstairs. He would no doubt like to take a turn about the park. You should accompany him rather than perch here like a gargoyle."

"I should enjoy that immensely," said Sofia, perhaps a shade too brightly. She set the cake she'd been holding back down on its tiered silver platter, beside several untouched sandwiches. One of the side tables unhinged itself to stretch into a mechanized parlor maid, who began gathering up the tea things with jerky motions.

Sofie turned her head so she didn't have to look at it.

She knew she was the victim of fortunate circumstances: an heiress and, having recently lost her papa to an illness born of dissipation, an orphan. Her aunt had been kind enough to take her in, but it was quite obvious that she intended to foist her son on Sofia before she was properly out. All done with such kindness, however, that Sofia would have been hard-pressed to refuse his attentions, should he have ever decided to actually favor her with them.

For her cousin Valerian's part, he clearly thought of her as a child when he thought of her at all. When she actually was a child, he had been kind, carrying her on his shoulders so that she could pull down crisp green apples from trees. He had pulled splinters out of her fingers, and once he made a bandage from his neck cloth and moss when she skinned her knee trying to ride one of the mechanized gardening beasts.

Back then, Sofie had looked forward to holidays in the country, when the whole family would be together. She had looked forward to Valerian, who alone among them was unfailingly patient and kind. But he had words with his father one year, and the next summer he went home with his friends from Eton. She'd missed him then, but she did not need him now. Especially because he had made it so perfectly clear that he'd never missed her at all.

Yes, she would be hard-pressed to refuse his attentions, but it was still maddening that he never gave her the opportunity.

Since it was her duty to be an obedient niece, Sofia went to look for him. She told herself— repeatedly—there was no other possible reason for seeking him out.

Passing through the house and down the stairs, she was careful of the brass-and-cloth wires connecting the automaton servants to the walls. They turned their metal faces away as she passed, bowing their heads, so silent that she heard only the faint whirring of their gears.

She found both her cousins in the Blue Salon. Valerian, a gentleman of six and twenty, had carelessly thrown himself into a chair at the edge of the room and glowered as his sister, Amelia, waltzed about with her mechanized dance instructor.

The marionette was very fine. His sculptor must have worked from a well-favored model, because his brass features were curiously compelling. Amelia was shown to great advantage in his arms, her face flushed and the blue bandeau that pulled back her dark curls a complement to her sparkling blue eyes.

When Valerian saw Sofie, he rose. "Cousin."

"My aunt suggested that you might be going for a ride," Sofia said. "I see she was mistaken. You must excuse me."

"Not at all," said Valerian. "Nothing would please me more. There is something I would say to you in confidence."

For a moment, Sofia wondered if his mother had pushed him into making a declaration, but his gaze was on his sister and the marionette that swept her around the room. She did not know what to think.

Valerian left Sofie to pull a pelisse over her dress and gather up gloves and a muff. Then she hurried out toward her cousin's barouche.

"Miss," croaked the butler, his voice box badly in need of oil. "Your hat."

"Oh," Sofia said, embarrassed that the house had noticed with its glassy lenses what she had not. She was anxious to be out riding with Valerian and making a cake of herself because of it.

"Thank you," she said to the butler. The rest of the family called the butler Wexley, as if he were a real servant, one of the family, but she couldn't bear the fiction.

The Obermanns had not seen the things she had, so she had to forgive them their comfort with the automatons, even if the sight of them chilled her blood.

Sofia had dragged her father home from automaton parlors more times than she wanted to recall. They were gambling hells, unlike the refined White's or Boodles, and filled with even worse pleasures than dice or cards.

She remembered the sinister gyrations of faux girls and boys, moving around the rooms in precise rhythms and striking poses before being chosen for the back rooms and their metered pleasures. She recalled a mannequin with a child's body and shining copper skin, licking an oversize sweet with jerking movements of her head and papery tongue. She remembered another, blindfolded and gagged, his hands cuffed behind his back. He jerked slowly against his bonds, first left, then right, then left again. Perfect repetition.

"These are primitive," her father had told her, voice slurred. "The castoffs and parts from broken servants." No one seemed to mind.

"Don't be missish," her father had said as she hung back from him, instructing one of the stable hands to hand him into his barouche. The front of her father's shirt was stained with brandy and any quantity of Madeira. His neck cloth was a mess, his quizzing glass cracked, and his shirt points beyond all repair. "Come and kiss me! I've won a lot of money."

Perhaps had her father lost more, his habits would have been regulated by debt, but he had the devil's own luck. He played better foxed than he did sober. And so he added to his fortune even as he drank himself to death.

And if his reputation had sunk in some circles, it rose in others. Sofia knew that he was far from the only gentleman to frequent such places. One of their neighbors in Bath went so far as to bring one of the used female automatons from a parlor to his home and set her up as one of the servants, linking her with the house. Another had accrued a great deal of debt by beating a mannequin until its head caved in after a particularly bad round of cards. Automatons, even these, were expensive.

She had seen so many men — even her uncle—pull on the skirts of automatons, press them against walls, or trade them to friends.

And not just gentlemen were drawn to the things. One of the Sofia's schoolmates had been given two mannequins by her parents to act as personal servants. They were youngish male twins with black hair cut in the style of medieval pages and eyes as blue as glass eyes could be. The schoolmate had invited over several other young women of her acquaintance for tea and cordials. Sofia milled awkwardly as the other girls cooed and kissed the boys' porcelain skin. She was embarrassed, without being able to explain why, although she had to admit that the twins were something out of the common way. They giggled together with high-pitched, tinny voices and whispered nonsense.

One of the things she appreciated most about Valerian was the way he treated the automatons. The same way he treated almost everyone: with perfect courtesy.

Sofia did not understand why the mannequins worked as they did, but she knew they couldn't really think, didn't really learn. They laughed because of the large metal box of wires and gears turning at the center of all automaton houses, the one that controlled the things. It told them to bring you a bowl of grapes, and not a bowl of stones, or to remind you about your hat. It wasn't intelligence or consciousness or empathy. That they seemed to possess these qualities was enough for pretense, but Sofie resisted it. She reminded herself of the makers who oiled the gears and entered commands to the machine at the center of the house on slides of engraved copper. They were the ones who told the automatons what to do. They were the ones that would carry the blame if one of the mannequins stabbed them in their beds.

One of them could, Sofie was sure. And it would wear the same stupid expression as it did when asking her if she'd like another cup of tea.

Valerian handed Sofie up into his barouche. He had a reputation as a first-rate whip that seemed deserved as they rode toward town in the dappled light.

Sofie smoothed down her dress and tried not to glory in the breeze on her face and the warmth of the sun. Ladies weren't supposed to want to be outside too much, for fear of freckling.

"My mother wanted me to speak with you," he said.

Sofie took a breath. She had certainly not wanted his proposal to begin with an avowal of her
aunt's
regard rather than his own. Still, her stomach knotted at his words. Instead of looking at him, she stared instead at her gloved hands, at the smudge of oil on the cloth where she had brushed the butler.

Valerian cleared his throat. "I know it isn't quite the thing, to involve you in our troubles this way, cousin, but I fear my mother's insistence means she will go to you herself if I do not."