Godspeed by February Grace
395 pages
Literary Romance/Steampunk
I studied him with rapt attention for some time, thinking that he had no idea until the moment he turned to me, loupe still in place, and nodded in my direction.
“My father was a clockmaker,” he declared, without my having to ask. “He was… sort of a business partner of Schuyler’s father. He built timepieces, restored antiques for the shop on a regular basis. I learned everything I know about clock repair and watch making from him.”
He closed the case on the back of the watch he’d been working on and set his tools aside. Last of all, he removed the loupe and put it away. “I find concentrating on the task of repairing such a thing helps me to think.”
I marveled that work so intricate, requiring such meticulous attention, could help anyone think about anything else. It just served as evidence again of the unusual mind at work here, someone so brilliant that clockworks were no challenge at all, and only in the mysteries of the inadequacies of the human body could a true challenge be found.
“Your mother?” I asked softly. Hearing how dry my throat was, the doctor rose from his chair and brought me a glass of water.
“I do not remember.”
He did not elaborate as to whether she left him by choice or by chance, taken in death or had abandoned him when he was a boy. “Before you ask, no, I have no siblings. Well, none that are not… convenient fabrications.”
I left the comment alone for now; I did not want to stop him talking. If I risked asking the wrong question in this moment he may never be willing to approach this topic again.
I wondered that he was willing to approach it now. Again, I was too afraid of breaking the spell to question too mightily.
“Schuyler’s mother, I remember. She was a very kind woman. Gifted,” he continued. “A musician. All the musical instruments you find around this place originally belonged to her. She tried to teach me them; violin and piano, but I had no natural talent for music.
“So off to my father’s workshop I went, usually ferrying back and forth from it the items from Ruby Road that needed to be repaired. Very early on he had me assisting him, handing him this tool and that, never once behaving as if he believed I didn’t understand. No matter how young I was, he always used the proper terms for things and explained to me exactly their purpose inside the clockworks.” He got a distant look in his eye, and shook his head as he paced past his workbench and moved toward the cabinet across the room.
He opened up a panel, procured a bottle and glass, and poured himself a drink. “I didn’t realize then that the greatest gift he would ever give me was faith in my own mind.”
He downed the dark, pungent liquid in one long gulp and nodded approvingly at the taste. He pivoted on his heel and turned back toward me. “Still, you refuse to tell me about yourself.”
I looked away.
“Even so much as your name.”
My eyes remained focused on the opposite wall.
“I am a fairly resourceful man, you know.”
I felt the urge to laugh at the magnitude of his understatement. To say he was fairly resourceful was to say that the sea, roaring and endless with advancing and retreating tides, was vast and tasted slightly of salt.
“I’ve done some investigating,” he said, pacing again as he spoke. “There have been no reports of a young woman your age, anyone even close to your description, going missing in the last year, and I highly doubt you were on the street more than a day before Schuyler plucked you from it. Otherwise you would not have survived.”
He looked me over with carefully critical eyes, almost as one considering purchase of a piece of used merchandise. “Why is it a girl with such… who has been at least somewhat carefully kept and cared for over the years, would not be reported missing?”
I summoned all of my strength to speak, because I was driven to answer. “To be reported missing, sir, one must first be missed.”
He inclined his head, accepting my explanation. He clearly understood how much speaking those words, words tied to such difficult emotions, took out of me. He pressed me no further.
He returned to the workbench behind the surgical table, where I now sat with my legs dangling over the side.
He opened the top drawer, procured a small wooden box, and held it up on display.
“A gift.”
My eyes widened when I saw what at first appeared to be a brilliant silver-tone locket; antique, and fashioned in the arcing shape of a heart.
“This, like most things in life, is more than it first appears.” He removed it with one hand and set aside the box with the other before moving within reach. “This is the means by which we will free you from the torment of harsher treatments.”
I watched with absolute amazement as he unlatched the clasp on the charm and revealed its complicated interior. Gear upon gear, lever upon lever, all churning and clicking away in musical, clockwork time. He leaned in so close now that I could feel the warmth of his cheek against mine.
“Here.” He dangled the necklace in front of me, where it danced and flickered in the light. “This is your new heart. It’s rare, and young, and made of pure white gold.” For an instant he looked upon me with an expression I could not possibly put emotion to. “Exactly, I am certain, like the one it will repair.”
He lowered the chain around my neck, and as he did so, tears I could not deny wound their way down my cheeks and onto his gifted, powerful hands.
Amazon
