Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (29 page)

“You'd only fog up
the glass, Alan.”

“Ah, good point.
Aren't you the learned tea man?”

“I should be.
Considering what I went through.”

We all watched as
Alexia presented a small bagged tea, freshly snatched from her ceiling, we were
told, and dropped it into a smallish, black pot to her immediate right.

Plunk.

The pot gurgled.
Alexia slowly moved the valve beneath her right hand and it slowed to a simmer,
as did a few of the other boils. She made a face at Eddie, a signal. He quietly
got up and blew out about half of the candles in the room. Even in the now
dimmer light, I could perfectly make out a line of soft vapor rise from the
small pot and fill the air.

The first tea.

When the steam
started to become thick, Alexia extended her arm and let her hand play through
it. She swirled through the vapor, scanning it closely with her eyes.

“Yes...” she
quietly said after a few minutes of study.

“See something
there, Cat?” Eddie asked, just above a whisper.

“Mmm-hmm...” she
said, circling a bit of the steam with her index finger. I myself couldn't make
anything out of it, though I've never claimed to be a medium.

“Mister Kitt...”
Alexia said softly, keeping her eyes on the mist.

Kitt snapped to
attention. “Huh? Yeah?”

“This tea is fond
of you.”

“It...it is?” he
said, bewildered.

“Look at that
bag.”

“What bag?”

“The shape in the
steam. The beggar bag on a stick. The fool's bundle.”

“I don't think you
need to insult people.”

“It's not an
insult,” Dolly whispered.

“Maybe not to you.
But if you call
me
a fool
,
then—“

“Shhh...” Alexia
whispered. “You'll taint the mist. Let me see now...ah...”

“What is it?” Kitt
said.

“The bag isn't
dissipating into the moving steam. It's moving
with
it. How curious.
What are you running from, Mister Kitt?”

“The King's pack
of maniacs. You know. Me, Pocket, shoot on sight. That whole bit.”

“No, no. That
isn't what I'm seeing...the bag...it's moving, but it's also...growing. What's
going into the bag, Kitt?”

“How should I
know?”

“The unseen fool
at the end of this stick...he mustn't just be running...he's taking...What is
he taking along, Kitt?”

“I said, I don't
know. Maybe you should try someone else.”

I still couldn't
see anything. Alexia tried to waft the cloud of mist into Kitt's direction. I
glanced back and saw Kitt try to casually blow it back.

“I am not yet
satisfied,” Alexia announced. “Eddie! Bring the candle.”

Eddie took down
one of the sitting candles that was still lit and placed it at a pillowless
spot of floor near Alexia's seat. Silently, little Iago got up and fumbled his
way to the candle. He sat down and looked to the tea lady for assurance. She
nodded, and he began his talents.

“The kid's a
mystic, too?”

“Not quite. More
of a convenient hobbyist. You did wonder why they called him 'lantern boy,'
right?”
“Not really. Just figured the kid liked lanterns or something. Children are
always playing around with strange things.”

“Very good, Alan.
You're absolutely correct. Didn't figure that out myself until much later. Just
so happens that Iago had a habit of playing with paper lanterns that were kept
and displayed at the tea house. You know, decor. He'd put them up to lights,
make shadow shapes with his hands and feet, and so on. Are you with me?”

“With you.”

 “So
apparently, Alexia started picking up on what she calls 'significant images' in
his shadow play and worked him into the act.”

“Ah. So what did
the boy do?”

A few paper
lanterns were supplied from the back and Iago quickly went at them, a look of
unrestrained glee as he held the paper to the light.

“He's going to set
one on fire,” Kitt whispered. His warning went ignored by the rest of our
group.

Iago dipped a
large lantern up and down before the fire, the colored paper casting a changing
tint over the room. He started moving his fingers into little animal shapes
behind the lantern, creating little silhouettes. That's when we saw it. The
shape.

“Ha!” Gren said.
“He's made a fox. That's Kitt, all right.”

“Such friends you
find in the shadows,” Alexia said to the boy. He grinned, proud of himself, and
plopped the lantern aside. The steam began to thin out.

“I still don't
understand what that means,” Kitt said.

“In due time,”
Alexia responded. “Come! Let's try another tea!”

We tried several
different teas over the course of the evening. Strong teas, distilled teas,
teas mixed with fruit, teas I couldn't identify. Yes, very strange and
mysterious brews that produced color, actual
color
, in the mist, and
strange flavors on my tongue as I tasted. Those were the batches that most
strongly affected me, and as I inhaled the steam, I could feel it nearly
seeping into my mind.

Though if I or any
other in the room was being affected by the tea, then that affection greatly
paled in comparison to Alexia's growing intoxication.

“Tea! Tie! Toe!
Tum!” she began to call out, rolling her head backwards and clapping her hands.
She spun a valve and a puff of thick orange shot up from a pot. Alexia giggled
madly and inhaled, welcoming the concoction up her nostrils.

“You say she was
getting drunk...off the steam?”

“Seemed like it.
Could be just overzealous enthusiasm, but...I don't know...I've seen Alexia
drunk, and…well, that looked pretty damn close.”

“Drunk off
steam...huh...I could be out of a job. Vapor's just air, right? Air's a lot
cheaper than whiskey.”

“I wouldn't sell
the bar yet, Alan.”

“Not mine to
sell.”

Within an hour,
Alexia was a mad woman, raving and cheering and spinning her valves. At one
point, she split open one of her cherished pomegranates and, after accidentally
swallowing a seed, started moaning about the bush she believed she would grow
in her belly. I could now understand Gren's reluctance to be within striking
distance of her.

“The ether is
positively
dancing
tonight!” Alexia proclaimed. “Daaaaaancing!”

I coughed and
tried to waft the growing blanket of steam out of my face. It was beginning to
create a fog in there and I was starting to get drowsy. The others seemed to
be, too.

Iago was the first
to fall, tucking his arms and legs in and sleeping right there on the floor.
This happened earlier in the evening, before Alexia had fallen into her, uh,
trance. I think she was a little relieved to spare the kid of her
inevitable...enthusiasm...at the head of reading. I watched the child, the way
his lids squeezed close, and began to feel my own get heavy.

“Hey...Alexia...”
I muttered as the room started to spin.

“Storyteller!” she
shouted in her passion. “Speak!”

“Maybe we should
ease up a little on the brewing...I'm feeling a bit—”

“Come! Move to the
boiling pit to announce your epiphanies!”

“No...look, I was
just saying, I think—“

“Come up here!”

“No, I...okay,
fine.”

Dizzy, I wobbled
up and took a single step. A burst of green smoke caught me between the eyes
and I fell face down into another pillow. Everything got very warm and slow and
quiet.

“And then what?”

“And then, Alan, I
picked up my head and…I was floating.”

“Floating?”

“Just an inch or
so.”

“Above the pillows
and such?”

“Right.”

“What did you do
then?”

“Well, the first
thing I did was entertain the possibility that I had fallen asleep.”

I looked around
the room as my body hung in the air. The space looked different. It had a
subtle but distinct glow. Rather charming, actually. The others were nowhere in
sight and the once colorful pillows were now shades of black, white, and grey.
That immediately bothered me. Damn it, Pocket, I told myself, you are a man of
art. Push a little color around, for God's sake! Of course, that proved
difficult as I was bobbing in the air without much of an idea of how to stop.

I flailed and spun
for a time, trying madly to hit the ground. At last, I resigned and accepted my
fate as a man adrift, prepared for this new, airborne existence, and hit the
ground like a stone.

Figures, I thought
to myself.

The light around
me seemed to pop and pulse with each step I took as I moved through the haze
and out of the reading room. I coughed up a few colorful puffs of steam and
wandered haphazardly through the tea house, eventually stumbling knees to chin
into the thick white door from before.

SHELVED REFLECTIONS AND TEA STORAGE

Just a storage
closet, right? That's what Eddie had said. Full of musty jars and old socks and
kettle parts. You can't shelve reflections, can you? I yawned and leaned into
the door. The knob clicked and turned in my hand.

Unlocked? But I
had watched Alexia turn and snap the key myself. Then how...

Pocket, you're
daft. Tense at an old closet in a tea house. Ridiculous.

So why did I so
greatly want inside?

I reread the sign.
Shelved reflections, huh? Well, why not? Alexia wanted us to chase after
enlightenment, right? So what's the harm in taking a shortcut and plucking a
little personal self-reflection from the closet? No harm at all, right?

I realized I was
asking a lot of questions to myself, so I put aside questions and went directly
into statements, which always got things moving much quicker.

All right, I told
myself. Go on.

I opened the door
to the storage closet. The man sitting inside instantly reprimanded me for it.

“Close the door,
already!” he said. “You're letting out the heat!”

“Uh...yeah...sorry.”
I felt behind me for the door and closed it.
And there we were together inside the storage closet. When I say closet, I mean
it was really more of a room. And when I say room, I mean it was really more
like a dining room. Long, stately, brimming with chandeliers. A long dining table
made from...exquisite...yeah, that's what a man of breeding would call it
...
made
from
exquisite
marble and oak.

The man was
sitting at the table, a tall glass of purple wine in one hand, an uncorked
bottle in the other.

“Come sit down,”
he said. With those words he very sloppily began pouring the wine from the
glass into the tip of the bottle. “I'm sorry,” he said at one point. “I've lost
my manners. One second.” He reached under the table and produced a second empty
bottle. He then emptied the glass into both bottles, smiled, and slid one down
the table to wear I was standing.

“It's okay,” he
said warmly. “Sit down.” I walked over and sat across from the gentleman as he
began enthusiastically slurping from the wine bottle.

“So...” I said,
swirling my own bottle cautiously in my hand, “how long have you been living in
the tea lady's storage?”

“Been shelved for
seventy-two years.”

“You look good for
your age.”

He laughed. “Funny
you should say that.”

“How so?”

“Take a good look,
Mister Pocket.”

I did, and with a
fright, it suddenly dawned on me that this dining stranger was in nearly every
way a complete duplicate of myself. He wore my appearance to the tee, matching
skin and eye and protrusion of the nose. The only difference I could discern
was that he was wearing his spoon in the wrong side of his hat.

“Oh!” I said.
“Uh...yeah....I see.”

“Don't be so
spooked. Drink some more.”

“I'm not sure I
should, Mister...uh...”

“Mister Tekcop,”
he said with a grin.

“Teacup?”

“Tekcop,” he
corrected. “With a KC, not a CK. Stop staring around. People will think that
you're strange. There's nothing worse than to be thought strange.”

“I'm sorry. I'm
just a little...what is all of this, anyway?”

“Oh relax, Pocket.
It's just the tea dream.”

“Tea dream, you
say, Tekcop?”

“Exactly. You
inhaled a lot of vapors. Put you right out.”

“So we're not
really here?”

“Of course we are!
I just poured you a drink!”

“Are you sure I'm
not just snoring on the floor back there?”

“It's possible. Go
check in on yourself and see.”

“No thanks. Not in
the mood.”

“Fantastic, then,”
Tekcop said, stepping up onto the table. “Walk with me.”

“On the table?”

“You know another
way to get there?”
“I don't know.”

“Then hurry up!”

I climbed up on
the very long table and followed Tekcop. The table lasted for miles, extending
far past the dining room into what looked like a grand porcelain museum.

“What is this?” I
asked.

“The hall of
reflections. They're kept pretty fresh in here.”

“Like mine?”

“Hmmm? I'm sorry,
what?”

“I mean, like you.
You're my reflection.”

“I'm one of yours,
sure.”

“
One?
How
many does a person have?”

“Depends, doesn't
it? How many sides, how many outlooks, how many perceptions—“

“But I've been
looking into mirrors all of my life, and you're the only reflection I've seen.”

“Not necessarily.
Some of us look alike.”

“I see. So you are
more of a, eh,
perception
of myself than an all-around duplicate.”

“Wordy, aren't
you? You shouldn't be so wordy, Pocket. You'll bore people.”

“You're pretty
critical, Tekcop.”

“Only to you. And
to me, I guess, by extension. Strive for the ideal and all of that. Perfect or
flawed, those are the only options.”