Steampunk Fairy Tales (8 page)

“
I know, I know! I just
….” He groaned again and gripped his head. Strawberries. Focus on
her. On the success.

She huffed and then smiled as he looked up
at her. “I just want to see my father’s mistake corrected. Drink
it. Please.”

“
Just one more test. After
the last time,” he waved a paw at himself, “I want to make sure
there’s no more problems.”

“
But what test would
you—?” She ground out before a loud banging resounded from the
front door. “Now who could that be? Do whatever testing you think
you need. I’ll go check the door.” She left, leaving the door open
behind her.

Test. Test. What test could he do? What test
could he remember? He could ... see how it reacted on a plant. He
had plants. But plants weren’t animals. Wasn’t that why he took it
himself? The tests were inconclusive on other animals and plants
weren’t a good option. Maybe the aetheric microscope Miss Eliza
bought? It would show any impurities in the formula.

Shouting. His ears perked up. Miss Eliza was
shouting at someone. Wolfe padded to the open lab door and
listened.

She was yelling, “... Grant, he’s not here!
Coming in will help nothing!”

“
You have been evading me
all week, Miss Fermin! I won’t have it! Not with proof he’s as
dangerous as your father! Either he comes away from this house, or
you do!”

Inspector Grant? He was threatening Miss
Eliza! Wolfe growled and grabbed the flask. This was his mess to
fix. He just had to get Grant placated. Then all would be well.

The potion chilled his throat as it rushed
down.

Pain. Twisting bones.
Tearing muscle. Blood rushing in a hot frenzy. Heart beating,
hitting the bones in his chest. Something was
wrong
. The beaker shattered on the
wall across the room. What had
she
done? He roared, the glass around him rattling
from the pressure.

Footsteps running. Gasps.

She
was in doorway, hand covering mouth.
Her
other hand was gripped by the
man in front of
her
.
She
was
pulling, tugging, escaping. Strawberries filled his senses:
she
was
unhappy.

Growling. Man pulled out silver barrelled
thing. No matter. Leaping, tearing, biting.

Screaming.

Silence after crunch. Hot liquid rushing
down throat.

She
laughed and petted head. Red coated
her
skirt. “Oh my gorgeous
Wolfe
. You’ve given me
the world!”

Sniffed. Strawberries. Tail wags.

The Yellow Butterfly

Ashley Capes

C
lank.

Takashi slammed his hammer
in time with the other men in the factory. Light from high windows
gleamed on the steel sheet. Another ten just like it had to be
finished by dark, else
Shachō
Nishimura would have two men—chosen at
random—beaten and sent home without pay. His brutes wouldn’t break
arms or legs of course, since it wouldn’t do to hurt productivity,
but the bruises would be black enough.

And maybe it wouldn’t matter soon.

The town of Baigan was teetering on
collapse, or so it seemed. He’d tried to buy pears yesterday, and
the merchants had only shaken their heads and sent Takashi back to
the dust that climbed the wooden walls of the buildings around him.
Shouts had risen from the harbour as he’d walked by but he hadn’t
turned. Another submersible accident – more of Nishimura’s lust for
gold gone to folly.

A shrill whistle sliced through the clash of
steel-on-steel and hiss of steam.

Takashi stopped, wiping the sweat that stung
his eyes. It ran down from his close-cropped hair; like every sane
man in the factory, he kept it short. Less to get caught in one of
the hulking, snapping machines – their mouths were ever-hungry.
There was always someone shovelling piles of coal into the beasts’
red bellies and their sparks were like tiny orange demons, darting
everywhere.

It was different in Geinmo, supposedly,
where electricity powered some of the machines. Takashi sighed; a
new world loomed.

Foreman Ito entered
through the gate. His face was red and his arms flapped in his
black kimono as he strode along the rows of sweating men.
“
Shachō
Nishimura
is on his way. I want you working, do you understand? Don’t make me
regret hiring you.” He shook his head, then hollered. “Two more
submersible interiors due by the end of the month. That’s ten days.
Ten days!”

Hiro set his hammer down and leant close,
grinning. “He seems especially shrill today.”

“
That he does, my friend,”
Takashi said. “Maybe he can no longer afford fruit
either.”

“
No. I saw his wife
returning from the market in Geinmo; they still manage to find good
food.”

An engine rumbled outside, followed by the
now familiar hiss of a steam-wheel coming to a halt. Ito ran to the
box-like office near the open entrance and jerked on the chain
beside it. A dragon-shaped whistle screamed, and then it was back
to work.

Clank. Clank.
Pause, breathe.
Clank.
Clank.
Pause, breathe.

Takashi swung his hammer in time with Hiro
and the others, glancing at the entry as he did. Nishimura
eventually entered the room, clothed head-to-toe in western
garments: a suit with jacket, pants, shiny black boots and a
ridiculous domed-hat concealing his silver hair. What did they call
it? A bowler. Whatever that meant.

Fool.

But then nearly all the
ex-Samurai were. They’d scrambled to find some way of maintaining
power for years now. And for many, that meant business. Flying
machines, submersibles, steam-wheels for land and rail, and even
the new, motorised weapons. For others it was straight to the army.
Where Father said he ought to have gone.
It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak.

Nishimura spoke to Ito as he strolled down
the line. The factory-owner’s eyes swept across the floor but
didn’t truly appear to see any of it, as if his mind were
elsewhere.

“
... and you have not
experienced any such problems?”

“
No. No infestations of
ants,
Shachō
,”
Ito said, a look of confusion passing over his face. “I keep the
factory clean of insects and vermin, in fact—”

Nishimura raised a hand. Ito stopped
speaking. “No matter, Ito, truly. It was an idle question; you know
how I loathe such insidious creatures. And you need not concern
yourself with the state of the factory.”

“
Shachō
Nishimura?”

“
I am closing it. Baigan
is finished; work is moving to Geinmo. It’s bigger and there is
more opportunity for growth. The future of trade is no longer in
submersibles in any event: it is in flying machines and
steam-wheels. The latest model can carry four passengers; we only
need the roads to improve.”

“
This is unexpected, I
mean, we haven’t even had time ....”

The two moved beyond ear-shot, voices buried
by the clash of steel. Takashi stopped. Closing the factory? What
would happen to everyone? Maybe Baigan was dying but that didn’t
mean the old snake had to drive the nail into the coffin.

“
What’s wrong?” Hiro
asked. The other men were still pounding their part of the steel.
“Why are you stopping?”

“
You didn’t
hear?”

“
No.”

Takashi gripped the handle of his hammer.
“He’s going to close it.”

Hiro took him by the shoulder. “Speak
louder.”

“
He’s going to close the
factory,” Takashi said, raising his voice.

The other men in his row stopped. “Who?”

“
Nishimura.”

Movement at the entry caught his eye. A
young woman ran into the factory, her yellow kimono flashing in the
patch of light. Takashi lowered his hammer. The way she moved ...
such joy. Her silky black hair had been cut to frame her face and
her eyes sparkled. Even the butterflies patterned on her clothing
seemed alive.

It appeared she smiled simply because she
could run.

Chou. She bore the same demeanour whenever
he happened to catch a glimpse of her in the market square. Kiku
had been the same; the innocence of childhood.

“
Father!” she called after
Nishimura.

Hiro nudged him, and Takashi returned to his
work. They soon finished, and he moved to the pile of flat sheets,
lifting it with another man, and returning to set it in place over
the frame. This, like all the others, they’d curve to form the
inner-lining of the huge passenger submersibles that took people
all over the world.

The latest design boasted
a clear bottom for observing the sea floor; the glass
several
shaku
thick. Or ‘feet’ as those engineers who had returned from the
west now said. Not something he’d ever book passage within – even
had he the money.

By the time the small group returned, Ito
was nodding again as Nishimura explained which pieces of machinery
would be sent to Geinmo by rail and which would be sold.

Nishimura’s daughter walked alongside, her
head down, hair hiding her face.

The butterflies on her kimono no longer
seemed to dance.

Hiro nudged him again and he returned to
work. “I’m going to ask Ito about the factory closing. It can’t be
true,” he said.

Takashi only nodded. He counted syllables as
he hit the steel; he still had no ending that satisfied him but the
poem was taking shape.

thistles dancing –

an autumn wind

muffles the long road

###

Ito had been powerless.

The factory closed as the leaves fell across
the pale hills behind Baigan, and the men began to leave, searching
for work. A few to Geinmo, some north to the mountains, others
east, where word had filtered down: the Emperor needed steel
workers for his new project, a great moving stair that would climb
Fuji-san. Hiro was going to try his luck.

“
Come with me,” Hiro said
where they stood before the iron-covered harbour. A sea breeze
ruffled their clothing and tugged at columns of rising smoke.
“There will be work – a dozen of us are travelling
together.”

Takashi shook his head as he watched the
great crane on the dock, its squat body puffing steam as it
struggled to lift the insect-like shape of one of the newer, sleek
submersibles. The sides were fitted with long, thin cannons for
torpedoes. Men waved flags and shouted as they coordinated. “Thank
you, Hiro, but I will remain here.”

Hiro sighed. “Are you sure?”

“
I am. This is where she
would have wanted me to stay.”

“
You can’t live your life
this way forever, in a dream, waiting for a tomorrow that won’t
come.”

The man was right, but Takashi only
shrugged. “All my memories of them are here. If I leave, there will
be nothing left.”

“
Take your memories with
you.”

He put a hand on Hiro’s shoulder. “A new
place means new memories; the old ones will be replaced. Here, I
hold them a little longer. Go, go to the Emperor and build his
stair. It will be marvellous; you’ll be happier there.”

Hiro’s expression fell. “Take care
then.”

Not until his friend’s footfalls had died
away did he turn back to the buildings. How small and fragile the
wooden walls appeared compared to the stone and iron of the
harbour. Or the watchtower beside the hulking walls of Nishimura
Manor where it glared down upon them all.

He started toward the market. With what
little money he had left he would buy his own tools and maybe the
blacksmith would take him on.

Takashi passed through the shadows between
the two-storey buildings, the eaves of peaked rooves extending over
the street. Birds chattered from the thatching overhead but their
songs were soon drowned in the bustle below. A patchwork of people
filled the market: reds and blues, pinks and greens of kimonos and
robes, but also the more muted greys and browns of western dress,
their voices calling for goods before the storefronts.

The clock-master had closed his shop, but a
pair of children had set up a blanket before it, selling pieces of
broken machinery: springs, cogs, nuts and bolts all slick with
grease. Caps and valves—he even saw a copper coil of wire. Where
had they found that? One of the wrecks in the water? He did not
ask, did not let himself think upon sunken submersibles.

He slipped through the crowds. His broad
shoulders made it easy enough; people moved aside, sometimes after
a glance at his expression. Sometimes without looking. Yet he
didn’t mean to frighten anyone.

He purchased a new tool belt and an old
rivet-gun, the pressure-metre covered in dust.

Next came food. The catch was poor. Fish
continued to die in the dirty harbour, and the prices were so high
that he moved to the grocer and asked for the usual rice and fruit.
He snared the last of the peaches, which was a stroke of luck, and
smiled when Kenji wrapped everything and placed it on the bench
before him, the older man brushing away a few grains of salt as he
did so.

“
Two
ryō
, Takashi.”