Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (60 page)

I remember
noticing that there is no lock on my case, but still I cannot move.

I remember that
Father spent a lot of time working on our sailboat, and that made me happy. I
was happy about traveling and about leaving the case once and for all. Father
didn't seem to be as happy about it, for some reason. His shape was on the floor
a lot, crying and saying that “V” word. I thought, if he would only stop making
those sounds and finish the boat we would leave sooner and he wouldn't have to
cry all the time.

The room was
getting smaller though. The walls of the boat were closing us in, but I have
been in the case for so long that small spaces don't frighten me. I know that
once we are on the sea I will have plenty of space. I am excited about that.

One day Father
stops moving and he never starts again. He is on the floor holding a picture of
a lady. The dreams stop, but my thoughts do not. I want them to. Father is not
working on the boat. The water doesn't come out. Maybe it is because of the
gears.

My next dreams are
upsetting. There are lots of men, not just Father. They are wearing uniforms
and one of them makes fog on my glass. I remember that his teeth are ugly and
he grabs some part of himself and says I'm wearing a pretty dress and laughs
and some of the others laugh too. They are throwing Father's things around and
putting some of them into bags and one of them asks one of the others if he can
open my case. I hope that he will see my key and wake me up so I can tell them
to stop. The one with the teeth said they have to wait until someone decides
something. I wish I could remember. Maybe it would help the tea lady with
whatever she is trying to do.

When they are gone
I try to make the dreams stop as much as possible.

One day, something
is different. A dream happens, but this time, it is a vivid green and it glows.
It is pure color and I let myself focus on it. And then, it is not just color.
It is Father...no...it is another shape. Then something happens. It is like a
rush of air, like something out of a poem I read. My eyes open and the shapes
are clearer and I am falling.

Someone catches
me. I find out later that he is called Mister Pocket. He is taller than Father,
with messy hair and a half-smile and he feels safe. He has big, scared eyes
that look like the glowy green I saw in my dream just then.

Here I would like
to apologize, not just for my wordiness, (I fear I have been reading too many
books) but to whomever may read them, and I hope, may also choose to awaken me.
I fear I have been nothing but trouble to those I have met outside of Father's
boat: Mister Pocket, Kitt-Kitt, Gren-Gren and all the others. I have so enjoyed
my time with them, unfortunately for them, and maybe I could call them my
friends (though I am not sure how one determines this) even though I have
caused such a mess.

If, contrary to my
hopes, the one to turn my key is not Mister Pocket, I would like to make a
second apology for being a selective girl and I hope you will handle the burden
of my presence with the same understanding, though at times misguided, care
that Mister Pocket has favored upon me.

I must end this
entry here, as Miss Alexia has offered me a midnight tea, and this is a treat I
would rather not miss. I hope to have many more teas here. Goodnight. 

In the years I
have spent on this world following my foolish childhood decision to embrace the
romantic life of a writer, I have talked and talked and talked to whomever was
interested or bored enough to listen about the classic, nearly magical power of
the written word.

I now knew how
much breath I've wasted.

To say that the
words of the Watchmaker's Doll have haunted me, consumed me, turned the notion
of my own understanding on its side, would be a gross understatement.

I now knew how
little I've ever really understood.

I was right on one
point, though, in my years of silly, idyllic babbling. Words have power. I was
sure of that more than ever as I lay beneath the bleak and cracking ceiling of
my rented room, the night silent apart from the gruff breathing of Gren as he
slept in the corner, slouched in a patched and stained armchair.

It had been a hard
three days. After spending an evening reading and rereading the pages of the
Doll's diary, I had become ill with a terrible soreness that fiercely held onto
my bones and muscles. Gren said it was natural.

“You're tired,
Pocket. And you've been running mad around London in lousy weather,” he had
commented. “Of course you're sore.”

I never argued
with that logic. Gren, for all of his exhausting bluntness and simplification,
said what anyone would have said. But secretly I suspected more. The story of
the Doll's beginnings and the fantastic notion that this girl somehow possessed
both the ability to dream and the awareness off it—no, not just that—the
awareness of the outside world’s movements around her as she slept…it was too
much for me to absorb. My body was bending under the weight of these
revelations, and it hurt.

I took a deep
breath in bed. Three days, and the aches only worsened. This girl, this
impossibly unusual girl that I'd felt that I so thoroughly understood, now
seemed to me more foreign than ever. I had so many questions for the
Watchmaker's Doll, so many assumptions and misconceptions to clear up. And here
I was, once again lying in the dark with only my own stupid thoughts for
company as I tried to find sleep.

Sleep. As
admittedly put off I was at such an idea, it did occur to me that if I could
close my eyes and fall into just the right dream, I might be able to reunite
with her again, if for only a short while. That is, assuming I believed beyond what
she had written, if I followed a sneaking suspicion that the constant presence
of the Doll in my visions was more than just my dream’s invention. “Gutsplitter
Foxley,” she had told me in a dream, and following those words, I had found
these pages. Could it be possible that if this girl could find such clarity in
her own dreams, that she could somehow…invoke mine as well? Could I believe
that? I wanted like mad to, but I couldn't shake skepticism away from the
thought. Still, I tried, tried so desperately, to find her in my sleep.
Unfortunately, sleep scarcely came to me over those three days. I was ill,
sure, but I was also restless, frustrated, and distraught. The more I doted on
dreaming, the harder it became to do so. I spent the majority of those nights
angry and awake, cursing my inability to drift off. And when I did at last fall
asleep on the first and second night, it was disgustingly short, unsatisfying,
and dreamless. The Doll was so far away from me.

After a few
merciless hours went by on the third night, I sat up and jealously stared at
Gren in his slumber. I wanted to kick him. But then I felt incredibly
ungrateful for even considering such an act. Gren had been a great help. On the
morning of the second day, he had risked capture to visit a grocer and buy
enough food to sustain us for a week in hiding. I appreciated that. But then,
the thought crossed my mind that he might be at the present moment sharing a
dream with the Watchmaker's Doll himself, and I wanted to kick him again.

Instead, I got up
and tore a sizable hunk of bread from a loaf amongst our provisions. Chewing on
it, I walked the room, played with shadows, and took in the surroundings. I sat
at a half table and fiddled with my belongings, flicking my fingers against my
bottle of faerie juice and blowing the dirtied calling card that held my name.
THE ABSYNT BARD OF NEW LONDON, it deemed me. I laughed. What a silly and
pretentious title. But as I stared at those words, a grim and pathetic idea
struck. And since at that moment I was a grim and pathetic man, I acted on it.

I got dressed.

If I am truly a
bard, I thought to myself as I bundled up for the cold night, then it's only
natural that I wander. Careful not to wake Gren, I slipped out of the room and
started walking. But not aimlessly.

There was
something I was needing.

“Hey, Pocket?”

“Yes, Alan?”

“I've been
wondering for a time now, what exactly do you mean by 'absynt bard?' The
moniker doesn't seem to make much sense.”

“Oh. Well, the
title was given to me awhile back. Sounds flaunty, I know, but there's sort of
a story attached.”

“Is there?
Because, no offense meant, but I just assumed that it was one of those things
you come up with to appear more dramatic.”

“That's fair.
I'm...sigh...I'm pretty laughable, aren't I?”

“Hey, don't start
with that. Go on, tell me about the title.”

“You remember the
story I told you of the druggist's assistant?”

“The one you
worked for as a kid? Took over the business and then worried himself into an
early death?”

“Right. You
remember how I ran away when I was asked to write for him?”

“Sure. So?”

“Well, gossip
traveled pretty fast back then.”

“Still does.”

“It wasn't long
before the story of the poor man's public collapse reached me. I was young and
stupid and the guilt began to eat me alive.”

“You felt
responsible?”

“Of course, Alan.
If I had kept my word—”

“He would've still
gone out and shouted himself silly in the rain.”

“I know. But...I
still felt at fault somehow. Like I said, young and stupid.”

“So what
happened?”

“I asked around,
found out where he lived. Walked right up to his home and knocked on the door.
Figured the least I could do was make a little peace between us. Apologize or
something. A doctor was visiting and answered the door. He told me the man was
very weary, but I insisted. So...I was let in and brought to the bedroom, and
there he was. Just sprawled in bed, white as a sheet. I remember that the
doctor smiled and told my former employer that he had a visitor. 'Is this your
son?' he asked. And then, the druggist's eyes rolled over to me and became
wide. A bitter, poisonous sneer spread across his pale cheeks, and he spoke.
'Well, look who's come to visit!' he roared at me. 'If it isn't the Absent Bard
of New London, making his appearance at long last.' I was so afraid in that moment
that I just stood around and stared at the man. And then…what can I say? Anger
got the best of the druggist, and he began throwing everything within reach at
me. I got knocked in the head with a hand mirror.”

“Scary business.”

“Yeah. The doctor
tried to restrain him, but I just ran out of there, not even looking back.
Never saw him again. Heard around town about his eventual hospitalization and
death. But his madness stuck with me. Especially that label. I guess I've been
the Absynt Bard of New London ever since.”

“Absynt with a
'Y.'”

“Heh. Yes. Even in
print I seem to exist as an anomaly.”

“There are worse
things to be. But anyhow, the third night.”

“The third night.”

“You snuck out of
your room with a terrible ache.”

“That I did.”

I walked the
streets with my normally open and flapping coat tightly buttoned close. With
each step I took, I stomped hard, fearing my feet would go numb in the cold. It
was windy, and each draft amplified the soreness in my body until I was
stinging with exhaustion.

I turned down a
brick-bottomed road that was in considerable need of repair, a fact made
evident to me as I nearly tripped over a dislodged brick. I caught myself
before falling on my face and thought suddenly of that damned, old Frenchman. I
remembered his childish clapping and cackling as I stepped into a mud puddle
under the British rain so long ago.

No rain this
night. I looked up. No moon, either. I didn’t care. It was the right kind of
setting for my mood. I kept walking, staying quiet under that dead sky, until I
found what I was looking for.

Until I found her.

The woman standing
at the flower cart noticed me as soon as I turned down the street. She put on a
knowing smile and nodded at me to approach. The woman appeared to be in her
late fifties but was still strikingly beautiful. She wore her hair up, brushes
of silver blending into a fading but still vibrant blonde. Despite the cold
air, she wore her long frock coat open, and beneath it clung an elegant dress
more suitable for an evening's opera. The garment's neckline dipped boldly down
in a more Parisian fashion.

“See anything you
like?” she said to me.

I lifted my eyes
and saw her gesturing to her selection of flowers. I shrugged.

“Not exactly what
I came looking fo—“

“I know why you're
here.”

The look she gave
me vouched for her words. But I wasn't following her game.

“How does this
work, then?”

“You choose one of
my flowers, each one beautiful, properly bred, and surprisingly affordable.”

“I see.”

“So why don't you
tell me what you'd like?”

I should've told
her that it didn't matter, that I didn't care.

“What do you
have?” I asked.

“A real collection
of beauties, I assure you. Come, now. What's your preference? Youthful?
Sophisticated? Matured?”

“Youthful.”

“Mmm...a common
taste. Then how youthful, exactly? Some of my flowers are just barely of
proper—”

“Nothing too
young.”

“I see,” she
nodded. “Do you have a petal preference?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Color. I have
some elegantly yellow-topped, or perhaps you'd like something a bit darker?”

“Red,” I said.
“You have any red flowers?”

She smiled wide.
“Ah. Maybe you're tastes
are
after something rarer.”

“Do you have any?”

“Young redheads
are hard to come by in my trade.”

“I can pay,” I
said, producing a clenched handful of bills. “Right now.”

The flower lady
surprised me by gently taking my hand. “I think we can work something out,” she
said.

For those
following this exchange but are unsure of the true nature of the conversation,
allow me to be blunt. Yes, I was paying for a woman. A street woman.

A whore.

For those put off
by this revelation, those who may condemn my character for handing money over
to a flower cart abbess after claiming to be miserably in love with the Doll,
well, I offer no apology. But I would encourage those to continue to follow my
telling, as my true motivations will soon present themselves.

The brothel I was
brought to was warm, but I declined the madame's offer to take my coat, instead
keeping it closed and buttoned tight. I was taken to the room of the girl
chosen for me and was instructed to wait for her to return from a date with
another customer. The room reeked of strong perfume, mainly because I knocked a
bottle of it over as I searched through shelves and drawers. Why was I doing
this? Because I was sore, and I like I said, there was something that I needed.

“Damn it,” I
whispered to myself. “Come on. Please.”

I soon heard an
approaching giggle, stopped my rummaging, and quickly restored the room to its
former order. In walked a young lady no older than, um, I'd say, nineteen. Her
hair was, as promised, a deep red, worn straight down and framing her squarish
face. She looked nothing like the Doll, but her presence brought an unexpected
calm about me. I still ached like hell, but my mind gained a renewed lucidity
that clung to me.

“Oh!” the girl
said, clearly surprised to find me in her chamber. “I'm sorry. I didn't expect
there to be—“

“I was told to
wait here,” I cut in, hardly in the mood to play coy. “Are you the one I paid
for?”

She looked me
over. “I...I don't know,” she sheepishly admitted. “My madame told me I was
nearly through working for the night.”

“I guess she
changed her mind.” I took more money from my coat. “Would this convince you to
stay?”

She thought it
over and smiled. Good, I told myself. I didn't have much money left from my cut
of the investors’ ball heist, and I was glad to see that I hadn't thrown it
around here for nothing. The girl's demeanor quickly changed. She softly shut
the door with her heel, adjusted her earrings, and sauntered over to me in her
most “professional” manner.

“Well,” she
purred, reaching for the bills in my hand, “where do we begin?”

I pulled away,
making it clear that she wouldn't touch my promised bonus until I became fully
satisfied.

“Fine,” she said,
trying to keep a slight irritation from showing. “How about a little music to
set the mood? I can send for a harp. Surely my madame must've told you that my
musical ability is—”

“It's late,” I
said to her. “I'd rather just skip all of that.”

She pressed her
fingers against my coat. “All right. You are the customer, after all. Just
wanted to make sure you get your money's worth.”

“I intend to.”

She giggled and
started working buttons. “Well, in that case, I suppose we should begin right
away. Let me help you out of this.”

“No,” I said,
clutching her hand before she could open up my coat. “Leave it a moment more.
I'm still cold from the night's air.”