Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (28 page)

“Right. Someone
worth remembering.”

“Huh?”

“I said, something
worth remembering.”

“Oh. Get some
sleep, Pocket. I don't know what the tea lady expects from us tomorrow, but I
have a feeling it will be exhausting.”

“Me too. Oh, and
Kitt?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you really
spend your childhood in the circus?”

“Would you believe
me if I said yes?”

I shrugged and he
reached for the door.

“For the sake of
the Great Tale of Will Pocket,” Kitt said, “let's say I did.”

“That's as close
as I'm going to get to a straight answer?”

“It's as close as
anyone gets, friend.”

With that he
re-entered the tea house. I stayed outside and watched the fog until I got
drowsy. Upon re-entry, I found Kitt passed out...on
my
couch.

“You...lousy...thief!”
I snarled under my breath.

Night continued
and I eventually regained sleep, sprawled out in the downstairs bathtub, with a
stolen pillow stuffed between my head and the rim of the basin.

Not my best sleep.

“GYAAH!”

My arms shot into
the air, swatting at the cold stream of water that was pummeling my face. I
coughed, spitting out the stuff before I drowned in it. To my left, I heard
victorious laughter and applause.

“Wet!” shouted a
young voice. “Got you!”

“Iago!” yelled a
horrified second. “What are you doing? This man is our guest! Mister Pocket,
are you all right?”

“Gr-grbt...off!” I
spat under the shower.

“I beg your—“

“Off!”

“Oh! Yes, of
course!”

And the water
subsided.

I was soaked,
absolutely drenched in the bathtub I had fallen asleep in over the night. It
was morning now and above me Alexia stood peering, and above her, the dripping
showerhead that she had just turned off.

“Thanks,” I said
flatly.

“Sorry. You okay?”

“Hell of a way to
wake a guy.”

“I should've warned
you about his games.”

“It's fine,” I
said, ringing out my hair. “I've been playing them since I got here. What was I
today?”

“Sea monster!”
shouted Iago, unseen, from the hall.

“Iago!” Alexia
snapped. “Up to your room!”

I heard the kid
whine then take off up the stairs.

“Sorry again,” the
tea lady said.

“My fault for
sleeping in the bathtub.”

“If you like, you
can throw your clothes on the line to dry.”

“Thanks, but it's
not like I've brought anything else to wear.”

“Well...” the
woman said, tapping a finger to her smiling lips.

The next thing I
knew I was standing barefooted in a dressing room, wearing a set of powder blue
men's satin pajamas, the pants of which ended a few inches above my ankle.

“Don't,” I said
sourly to the Watchmaker's Doll, who was looking me over with great amusement.
“Just...don't.”

She put her hands
in front of her mouth and tried to stop herself from laughing.

She didn't try
very hard. And in a few moments, she had stop trying altogether.

“Shut up,” I said,
narrowing my eyes and scratching my disheveled hair.

“That's not a nice
thing to say to a lady.”

“Hmph...” I
scratched the back of my right leg with my left foot. “I wouldn't consider open
ridicule to be very ladylike.”

She stuck out her
synthetic tongue at me.

“That isn't ladylike
either,” I added. She tossed her hair and continued to laugh. Women.

“It's just that
you're so
tall!
” she giggled. “Even without the boots.”

I sighed and
leaned against the nearest wall as Eddie entered.

“Start moving!” he
said. “Breakfast is getting...” He stopped and smiled. “Man, what are you
wearing?”

I endured a few
more minutes of laughter as Mister Gearhead joined Dolly in this moment of
great comedy.

“All right,” I
said at last. “Are you both about done?”

“Pocket, hey,”
Eddie replied. “If you needed clothes, why didn't you just borrow some of my
rags?”

“Alexia seemed to
think that these would fit better. She, uh, misjudged.”

“No kidding.”

At that moment,
the tea lady herself entered, marching in with a pewter serving tray bearing
three small teacups upon it.

“Here you people
are!” she said, passing out teacups. “Come, come. I need your reactions to some
new blends.”

“What are these?”
Eddie said, sticking his finger in the mysterious liquid.

“Experiments,”
Alexia stated.

Eddie raised his
eyes. “What
are
these?” he repeated.

“Concentrated
breakfast!” she proudly announced.

We held our cups
at a distance, inspecting them. Eddie's was tinted yellow and little squishy
lumps floated at the surface. Dolly's was thick, like cream, and bright pink.
It seemed more like a dessert than a tea. And as for mine, it was
brownish-black and a little slimy to the touch.

“Drink up!” Alexia
said. No one moved. “Go on, go on. It's safe.”

Eddie shrugged and
tasted from his cup.

“It's...uh...” he
said, curling his upper lip a little. “It's...what is it?”

“Poached egg,”
Alexia said. “I've mixed it into the brew.”

Eddie started to
grimace but caught himself and managed a bit of a smile. “Tasty.”

The Doll looked at
her drink. “Concentrated...breakfast...”

“Yours is a fruit
tart,” Alexia told her. “And yours, Pocket, is infused with bacon.”

We tasted, the
Doll of course having the benefit of owning no actual taste buds...or as far as
I knew.

“It's...thick,”
Dolly politely said.

“Thank you,”
Alexia replied.

“I didn't know
that tarts could be prepared in such a way.”

“Does that bother
you?”

“I suppose not. I
enjoy curiosities.”

“Do you now?”

“Did you just take
bacon grease and stir it into the tea?” I interjected.

“This is a place
of curiosities,” Alexia continued. “I sincerely hope you will enjoy this
evening's reading.”

“About that,” the
Doll said, setting her teacup aside. Eddie and I seized the opportunity and did
the same.

“Yes?” Alexia
said, looking slightly worried.

“Well,” the Doll
said quietly, “it's not that I'm not interested. It's just that I don't know
exactly what I'm supposed to do during a steam reading.”

“Leave all of that
to me,” the mystic said. “For now, don't even bother thinking on it.”

“All right...”

Eddie's stomach
made a noise. “Anyone else hungry?” he asked.

“Yes, of course!”
Alexia said, quickly gathering the teacups. “Let's eat! The meal will be
getting cold!”

“That's what I
came here to tell—“

“To the kitchen,
then! Hurry! Oh, and Mister Pocket, how are the pajamas?”

“They're...really
nice,” I half-heartedly replied. “Thanks.”

I could hear the
Doll snicker.

“You are very
welcome,” Alexia said, leading us to the hall. “I was quite distraught when a
traveling patron left them behind.”

“Hasty packer?”

“No,” Alexia said,
skipping out of my sight. “He died. They've been thoroughly washed.”

I stood alone for
a moment and looked at the cloth on my arm.

“Fantastic.”

I plucked my top
hat from atop a nearby wardrobe and carried myself to breakfast.

“You wore a dead
man's clothes?!?”

“Wouldn't be the
last time, Mister Dandy.”

“You jest.”

“If only, friend.
If only.”

“That's
just...unsanitary. Here.”

“Gah!
Pttt...what…what did you just throw at me?”

“Disinfectant.”

“Disinfectant?!?
It smells like gin!”

“Alcohol
disinfects! I don’t know what you may’ve picked up off of those rags, but I
know I don’t want it festering around in here!”

“I did mention the
words 'thoroughly washed.'”

“Better to be
safe.”

“Well, next time
you decide to 'be safe' with alcohol, give me a warning. I'll open my mouth.”

The day passed and
when night fell, we dutifully gathered in the front room to participate in
Alexia's reading.

“I can't believe
we agreed to this,” Gren grumbled.

“What's wrong?” I
said back. “Scared of a little tea?”

“I'm scared of the
tea
lady.
Last time I sat in on a session, Alexia punched me in the
face.”

“Why?”

“Hell if I know! I
asked the next day and she blamed it on 'the trance.'”

“Trance?”

“She really gets
into this whole thing.”

“Hey Pocket,” Kitt
said with a laugh. “Maybe she'll summon a dragon from the tea and it'll devour
us all.”

“And punch Gren in
the face,” I joked.

“And punch Gren in
the face!”

Gren sneered at
Kitt, who laughed openly.

“Ha-ha,” Gren
said. “If you want to laugh, let's talk about those pajamas, Pocket.”

“They're not that
bad,” Kitt said, coming to my defense, or more likely, seizing a chance to gang
up on Gren.

“Yes, they are,”
the Doll said, joining our discussion.

“You can all rot,”
I said casually. “They're surprisingly comfortable.”

“But did you have
to wear the hat and spectacle?”

“Of course not. But
I did.”

And then, Alexia
entered the room with Eddie and Iago trailing behind. She was clutching a watch
on a long chain that ticked in measure with the clock faces she wore on her
clothing. She was also wearing a look of unusual gravity.

“Here we go,” Gren
whispered.

“Friends,” Alexia
spoke, her tone proper and even. “Thank you greatly for your cooperation. Are
you prepared?”

“As we'll ever
be,” Gren said.

“Then I shall
begin. Please follow me.”

She took grand
steps, a peacock in a blue dress, and unlocked a set of double doors in the
back of the building.

The reading room.
It was quite large, stretching back from the doors in a diamond shape. Tarot
cards and star charts were pinned to sections of the walls with long curtaining
covering the rest. Additional cards were scattered about the floor. Candle
flames lit the space. The floor was covered with giant, brightly-colored
pillows, and the center of the room dipped down into a descending hole.

“Sit where you
please, but stay close to the circle,” Alexia commanded. I moved to the hole
and plopped down on a fat, green pillow. I leaned forward, rolling out the
lumps in the cushioning with my knees, and peered into the circular hole.

I was surprised.
It appeared that the flooring had been roughly cut out, lowered, and
reattached. Two shiny, brass gas pipes stuck up out of the pit with worn valves
at their ends. Between these pipes was a purple pillow, and around that, a
number of pots on gas burners that seemed to be wired directly into the floor.
Fantastic!

Silently, Alexia
walked to the center hole, sat gently in the pit, and draped the long-chained
watch over her lap. She placed a hand on each valve, resting on them like they
were the great arms of some throne. When we were all in place, Eddie closed the
double doors and took a nearby seat. Silence.

Iago was the first
to make a sound, openly yawning. I remember that he was wearing Eddie's bowler
and that the wide brim kept bobbing down over his eyes.

Alexia wrinkled
her nose at the boy as he yawned.

“You aren't
falling asleep on us, are you?” she asked.

Iago shook his
head “no.”

“Because I asked
you if you could manage if I let you stay up later, and you said 'yes,' didn't
you?”

Iago shook his
head “yes.”

“And you're still
up for this?”

He rubbed his eye
and gave a slightly-dazed nod.

“Come on, kid,”
Eddie said, smirking. “Time to be a man.”

Iago put on a
fierce face and gave a more reassuring nod.

“Good, good,”
Alexia said, rattling her fingernails on the valves. “Then we can begin.”

She took a breath.

“Okay, before we
do this, does anyone have any questions?”

Kitt's hand shot
up, an eager gleam in his eye.

“I have one,” he
said.

Of course, you do.

“Go ahead,” Alexia
said.

“All right,” Kitt
said. “You aren't going to need us to chant, are you?”

“
Chant?
No...why
would I?”

“I don't know,
because it's...mystical?”

“That's not really
how this works.”

“Okay, good.
Because my throat's been a little scratchy today.”

“Be quiet now,
Kitt-Kitt,” Dolly said.

“Sorry,” he
responded. “I just didn't want to ruin the...enchantment.”

Dolly laughed and
threw an unused, yellow pillow at him.

“Ignore him,”
Dolly said to Alexia. “Boys are ridiculous things.”

“Yeah, can't we
get on with it?” Gren asked, snippy. A pink pillow hit the back of his head.

Alexia made
another one of her “tee-hee's” at the clowning and almost lost the serious air
she had created.

“But really,” she
said at last, calmly, “we must start if we are to finish.”

“So,” Kitt said,
“if we don't begin, it will never end?”

“Makes sense to
me,” I said.

Alexia nodded and
closed her eyes. Her hands spun the valves in her grasp, and a low-pitched
whine moved through the pipes.

“The time has come
to brew,” spoke the lady of the tea house.

The pots began to
boil. I watched the bubbles pop at the surface of the heating water and smelled
gas in the air.

“Wow. So she just
started making tea, huh?”

“Only way to get
the steam.”

“I've never heard
of reading fortunes from steam, Pocket.”

“Neither had I.
Her processes were quite elaborate. I had asked Alexia a day or so before the
session why she chose to specialize in such an obscure art. She admitted that
the straightforward reading of dried tea leaves was a bit simpler and better
known, but the practice never fully satisfied her. Studying steam, she told me,
produced visions, symbols, and even lettering on occasion, all popping out from
the mist. Steam could also be inhaled, she pointed out to me. Get the right
steam in you and you could taste or feel or otherwise be led to an otherworldly
construct.”

“What do you mean
by 'the right steam,' then? Isn't it all the same?”

“I asked her that
as well, Alan. Why bother with the tea when you could just boil some water? She
told me different blends, flavors, consistencies, and so on all create subtly
different steam, which meant different visions, different patterns.”

“Huh. Creative
young woman, sounds like.”

“That she is.”

“You know, I keep
a kettle myself at home, Pocket. Sends up a few puffs here and there. Maybe I
should put a magnified lens to it sometime, see what I can make out.”