Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (25 page)

“What do you think
they are for?” Kitt asked, trying to reach up and flick one.

“Couldn't tell
you,” Gren said.

“You've never
asked?”

“I could never
find a casual way to bring about the subject. The two of them, they
just...never look up.”

“Unusual,” I said.

“I like them,” the
Doll said.

It wasn't long
before Alexia rejoined us wearing a moth-chewed white apron marked with some
sort of red sauce.

“I almost forgot,”
she said. “My apologies. Accommodations!”

“Oh, yes,” I said.
“Thank you, we—“

“Excuse us!” she
said, grabbing Dolly by the arm and pulling her up the nearby staircase.

“Where are you
going?” I asked.

“The lady's guest
quarters!” Alexia shouted from up the stairs. “Gentlemen sleep on the ground
floor!”

 They
clamored off and I laughed to Kitt and Gren.

“Women,” I said
with a grin.

“Yeah...” Kitt
said, frowning and folding his arms. “Wouldn't want to be around them
everyday.”

“You wouldn't?” I
said.

“They make me
itchy.”

“Itchy?” Gren
said.

“Why itchy?” I
asked.

“I don't know,”
Kitt murmured. “They're just....handfuls.”

I laughed. “I will
give you that, Kitt.”

“So what do you
think, Pocket?” he said. “Could you spend every waking moment in a woman's
company?”

Heavy stomping and
scraping bounced about over our heads.

“With the right
woman, Kitt, I could spend eternity.”

Eddie came out in
a bit, elbow deep in the same red sauce that decorated Alexia's apron. I
excused myself for a moment to the tea house's back porch for a breath of
fresher air. Eddie nodded and made a salute with the large wooden spoon in his
hand. The spoon was also dripping with red sauce, and so soon was his forehead.

I filled my lungs
with the good stuff as I stepped outside. Pressing my shoulders to a
scratched-up porch beam, I exhaled and watched my breath mix into the fog. It
was getting dark and I tried to spot the forthcoming moon through the wall of
mist. I caught it only once, just for a brief moment, and then it disappeared
into the dreamy ether, moving through pockets in the dusk.

I closed my eyes,
took another breath, and began to feel something sharp softly poking on my leg.

“Good knight or
bad knight?” spoke a quiet voice.

“A good night, I
hope,” I said without thinking. I was then poked harder. “Ouch!” I said,
opening my eyes. There was no one with me. I felt another poke against my leg
and I looked down.

“Oh,” I said.
“Hello there.”

It was a child. A
young boy no older than three. He wore a serious, albeit shy, expression and
prepared to poke me again. Cute kid.

“You good knight?”
he said, wielding a sharp-edged sword twice his size, its pointy tip aimed at
my right leg.

“Where'd you get
that thing, kid?” I asked, hoping he'd hand it over. Instead, he brought the
blade up into a playacted defensive pose.

“You good knight?”
he repeated.

“Knight...” I
said, getting where he was going with this. “Sure, I'm a good knight. Best in
the land.”

He grinned like a
hunter who had just snared a quick-footed hare. “From
where
?” he
demanded, pointing the sword at me once more. “Blue or yellow?” I noticed, at
his feet, that the boy had set up two upside-down teacups, one blue and one
yellow, to stand as castles.

Great. Not only
was the kid playing war games with me, but I had to pick the proper allegiance
or suffer the consequences. I had a feeling that if I swore an oath to the
kingdom of yellow and this boy flew the blue flag over his manor then I'd get
more than a poke from that weapon in his knightly hands.

“Blue or yellow?”
he said, gripping the handle with excitement.

Fortunately, no
one ever taught the child that you can't trap a storyteller in the bonds of a
preconceived narrative.

“Good young sir!”
I said, taking a knee. “Your name, I beg!”

“Iggi-ago!” he
said with a grin, raising his blade skyward into the fog. “I'm-a good knight!”

“Of course!” I
said, patting his shoulder. “Sir Iago, your exploits are famed from shore to
shore! It is truly an honor. I am William, knight of the kingdom green!”

“Green?” Sir Iago
said, not expecting this. “Blue or yellow.”

“Yes, of course,
Sir Iago. But truth be told, I serve neither land. I am a wandering swordsman,
far away from my home. I come from my land on the word of my lord,
King...eh...Greenman, who wishes to make an oath of friendship between our two
forces.”

“Friend?” said a
puzzled Sir Iago.

“Friends,” I said
with a warm smile, hoping to have overturned this little game.

But no...

“Sneaky knight!”
Sir Iago said. “Enemy!”

“No, no. No enemy
here.”

“In disguise!”

“I am only myself,
Sir William from the castle green.”

“Green is sneaky!
Prove you-a good knight!”

Now what, I
wondered, trying not to grumble.

“What task must I
perform to win your favor?” I asked. He just sort of stared at me. “What do I
have to do, kid?” I said flatly.

He looked around
the backyard, trying to come up with something. He looked up at the sky, and
then he had it. “Sky made the moon go away. Good knight can bring back.”

“You want me to
bring the moon out?”

He nodded at me.

It was worth a
shot. Theatrically I rose and outstretched an arm to the heavens. I opened my
palm and moved my fingers in the mist like it was running water. The yellow
moon hung in the distance, watching my act with expected boredom, as if to say,
well, go ahead, storyteller, pluck me like a grape if you've got it in you. And
pluck away I did try, picking my fingers at the blurry little edges of the
circle in the sky, sincerely trying to grab it. I wanted to laugh because it
was an act I had once frequently attempted when I was young Iago's size. It
made me remember how night used to look when I was a child, big and powerful
and all-consuming. I would wander outside in my clunky brown shoes as the sun
began to fall and find an apple crate to stand on. And then I'd simply reach,
extend my scrawny arms, and try like mad to grab the moon. On some evenings,
neighborhood girls would pass, giving me bothered and disapproving faces. I was
an awkward youth, not particularly handsome and somewhat lacking in amorous
charm, and to make matters worse, I was prone to clumsiness. As a result, I was
usually covered in scrapes and dirt from falling off of the apple crate when
the girls would pass and cautiously advise each other not to make direct
conversation with the strange boy.

I never cared.
Well, that's a lie. I cared slightly. They were, after all, girls, a creature I
was quite taken with, but I didn't let it deter me. The moon was always the
prize, the great light in the sky, like a trophy waiting to be collected. Of
course, I was never able to grasp it, I don't have to tell you that. But I dare
another child of my day to try half as hard as I did in the fleeting moments
before my father would come outside and lead me to bed.

“Try harder!” Sir
Iago commanded. When my straightforward grabbing at the sky failed, I dropped
my fingers and instead focused my mental capacity at the orb, willing the moon
to come out.

“By the honor of
the kingdom of the green,” I spoke, “I command you to come forward!”

Iago and I
watched. The fog only thickened.

“I don't think
it's coming, kid,” I said at last. Iago let out a discontented sigh and dropped
the sword to the ground.

“Done playing,” he
muttered with a frown. We shared a moment of quiet reflection at the sky. The
fog soon turned to rain. The boy swatted at it and reached for the door.

“Wet,” he said to
me, as if I didn't know. I nodded back in acknowledgment and he slid away into
the tea house. I finally had the moment of solitary peace I had been searching
for and I had to enjoy it under falling drops. I noticed a book of matches
sitting out on the porch.

“You really
should've come out for the boy,” I said to the moon as I reached into my
pocket. “What was it, too shy tonight?”

I listened to the
click and clack of raindrops hitting the roof and pulled out a perfumed, purple
cigarette.

“Watch this. Bet
you my life I can't strike magic tonight.” I put the Frenchman's cigarette to
my lips, cupped my hand, and struck a match. I somehow got a flame going long
enough to put it to the purple, but as I inhaled, the paper went soggy and
drooped to my chin. I let it go and it fell, a momentary spark of red jumping
out as the cigarette hit the ground. The moon slid an inch out of the fog for a
second then hurried back inside its protective blanket.

“Told you so,” I
said to the yellow orb, watching its glow darken in the rain.

I let myself back
into the tea house. There was nothing left for me out back but some growing
puddles.

“Do you see this?”
Gren was saying to Eddie as I returned. “Do
you
see
this?!?
”

The gambler stood
half-unbuttoned, showing his skewered chest plate up for the other's
inspection.

“Pretty lousy,”
Eddie said. “And how much did you pay for that?”

“Too much!” Gren
replied. “Piece of garbage!”

“The Priest did
this, right? Have you talked to him about it?”

“Not yet, but he's
in for it! First chance I get, Eddie! He's gunna have to answer for it! Stop
laughing!”

“What?” Eddie
said, grinning in his typical, maniacal way. “It's funny.”

“Not to me.”

“Button up
already, Goldilocks.”

Gren snorted and
closed up his shirt. Kitt came out of a side closet, crawling around on his
hands and knees.

“What are you
doing?” Gren said.

“Lost my wrench,”
Kitt said, peeking under an old rug.

“How'd you manage
that?”

“I wasn't planning
on it, Gren.”

Eddie kicked over
a stuffed evening chair with his boot. Thud. He stuck his face down at it. “Not
under here!”

“Uh...thanks,”
Kitt said.

Dolly and Alexia
appeared from the staircase, talking upon the subject of Victoria sponge cake.

“Eddie!” Alexia
said, putting fists on hips. “You've overturned my fourth favorite chair in
this room!”

“Sorry, Kitty
Cat,” he replied, shrugging his wide shoulders. “The fox lost something.”

“Here it is!” Kitt
announced, spotting his toy’s wrench-end protruding from the worn skirt of a
corner sofa. He tugged on it and to his great surprise, he found a wily young
boy's fingers attached to the other end.

“Rawr!” Iago
shouted as Kitt pulled him from his hiding spot. Kitt stumbled backward and
fell onto his back.

“Iago!” Alexia
said, marching over. “Manners!”

“What just
happened?” Kitt asked, sitting up.

Alexia scooped up
Iago with one arm and carried him to the stairs, little feet kicking the whole
way. Eddie laughed as she took the little warrior up to bed.

“Do you have any
other children under the furniture?” Kitt asked, confused.

“Nah, just the
lantern boy,” Eddie said, snickering. “He got you good.”

“He gets us all,”
Gren griped. “Last time I was here, he jumped off of that railing and caught me
around the throat. I could've been choked!”

“Or,” the Doll
said dryly, “the small
child
could have been seriously hurt.”

“Yeah...” Gren
said. “That too...but still—”

“Oh, shut up about
it, Spader,” Eddie said with a smile. “You waging wars on little kids now?”

“When did this
conversation become about me? I'm going out for a smoke.”

“I think it's
raining,” Kitt said.

“Then I'll just
stop talking,” Gren said.

Eddie and the Doll
whispered something to each other, presumably about the touchy gambler, and
both giggled.

“So,” Kitt said,
never one to dance around a question, “what's the story with the boy?”

Eddie shrugged.
“Not much of a story. He just showed up on the porch one day.”

“Like you, Eddie?”
Gren asked.

“Nah,” Eddie snorted.
“I wouldn't say that.”

“They found Iago,
that's the kid's name, Iago. It was pinned to his shirt,” Gren said. “They
found Iago crawling around after cats on the porch one night. No one ever came
after him, so Alexia just kept him around.”

Kitt scratched his
head. “So he's like your...pet?”

“Nah,” Eddie said,
again snorting. “If anyone's the pet of the tea house, it's yours truly. Woof.”

“You live here?”

“Yeah, I started
crashing in the crawlspace between the floors. Cramped and cozy.”

“So you just turned
up too?” the curious Kitt asked. “Out of the blue?”

“Not exactly,”
Eddie said, much more seriously. “Alexia, she...well...she's tough as hell,
but...she ran into a little trouble once. Something she couldn't handle
herself.”

“Hired help,” Kitt
mumbled, repeating Gren's words from before.

“I do apologize!”
Alexia said, coming down the stairs, sans Iago. “He becomes a little boisterous
from time to time.”

“Wrath of the
lantern boy,” Eddie joked.

“Lantern boy,”
Dolly said. “You keep calling him that. Is there a reason?”

“Oh, you shall
see!” Alexia said, clapping her palms together in a most otherworldly fashion.
“All in good time! Now, there's the matter of dinner. Eddie?”

“I know, I know,”
the brawler said. “Into the kitchen.”

They moved through
the room and paused briefly in one corner.

“I'll need a bit
more...oh! Mister Pocket!” Alexia said. “Have you been here all this time?”

I snapped out of
my gaze and realized that I was a part of this scene.