Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (46 page)

He shrugged. To be
completely honest, there wasn't a spot of brass to be seen between the
disgustingly thick layer of petrol that now coated the boots. The captain ran a
finger through it and flicked a small lump overboard.

“I'll be back
shortly,” he said, hurrying off.

“Odd one, isn't
he?” I said to myself.

“Who?” the Doll
said, keeping her eyes on the gears.

“The captain,” I
responded. “Who else?”

“Anyone else.”

“Good point.” I
yawned again as the Red Priest returned, clutching some peculiar contraption of
which he seemed quite proud.

“What's that?” I
asked.

He grinned. “Watch
and see.”

“There’s no
getting a straight answer out of you, is there?”

“What fun would a
straight answer be, Pocket?”

He sat on his
knees and slid the device next to the boots. The thing was sort of pot-shaped
with a wooden crank that the Priest began wildly turning.

“You, uh, made
this, I'm guessing?” I asked.

“Of course,” he
replied, spinning the crank.

I watched as, to
my surprise, the pot spit up a mushy lump of...something.

“What is
that?
”
I asked.

“What do you think
it is? It's soap.”

“Soap?”

“Hold on. This
isn't working.”

He frowned and
shook the machine. Finally, one small soap bubble appeared from the machine,
floated up for a moment, then dissolved.

“Hmph,” the
captain said, displeased. “It's not supposed to behave this way.”

“What's it
supposed to be?” I asked.

“Soap foamer and
dispenser. Portable.”

“Ah. Well, it sort
of dispensed, um, that one spot of soap.” He scoffed. I then proceeded to make
the situation worse. “Why don't you just grab a bar of soap and a rag?”

“Hmph...”

“Look, I can go
get it. Hell, I'll wash the boots if you like. I did dirty them—”

“No, no.”

“I might as well
do a little scrubbing.”

“No, no, no!”

“No?”

“This was supposed
to work. It was supposed to make things convenient.”

“Not the end of
the world.”

The Red Priest
sighed. “I can create better than this.”

I was surprised at
how genuinely disappointed the captain seemed at the failure of his device. I
struggled to find words of encouragement.

“Listen, it's
really not worth getting so upset over.”

“I understand,”
the Doll interjected, staring at her pile of gears.

“I'm sorry?” I
replied.

“You don't
understand. I do.”

“Would you care to
inform us then?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Why should I?”
the girl said. “He understands and I understand.”

“I don't.”

“You don't need
to.”

“Dolly—“

“Captain?” she
said, ignoring my complaint. “Can you look at something?”

“What is it?” the
Priest said.

She presented her
hands and their contents for him to inspect.

“Do you see?” she
asked.

“Hmmm...” he
replied. “No.”

“Those two.”

I stood up and
looked into her palms. Resting below her thumb were two smaller gears,
separated from the others. The Priest stroked his beard.

“They're
different,” Dolly said, pointing her nose down to the separated pieces.

“What do you
mean?” the Priest said.

“They are
differently crinkled.”

I squeezed my eyes
at them and realized that the girl was right. The smaller two displayed a distinctly
different outer lip-pattern, or whatever you call those little metal bumps, and
were just slightly off-color.

“So what are you
saying?” I finally asked.

She frowned.
“These two didn't come from me.”

“Oh,” the Priest
said. “I suppose not. Probably parts from something else sitting down there.”

“Oh...” the Doll
replied quietly. “For a moment...I thought they were mine...”

“Easy mistake.
They look nearly identical if you aren't paying attention.”

“Yes...I guess
they do...They're all pretty common-looking...”

“Dolly?” I asked.
“Are you all right?”

“Captain,” she
said, pushing out her hands, “I want you to take these.”

“What?” he said.

“What?!?” I said
in disbelief. “Doll, we've just waded out into that...that...giant—”

“I've changed my
mind. I don't need them,” she said. “They aren't part of me anymore.”

“Hold on—”

“Mister Pocket,
when you spill blood, do you keep it in a jar?”

I scratched my
head. “No.”

“No. You don't sit
around and watch it rust either. And do you know why? Because anything can
rust. That nasty, sunken beam you trotted on, it rusted. There's nothing
special about it anymore.”

“But we went all
the way—”

“There's no
difference now between these bits and the other dirty debris. I don't want to
be reminded that a part of me became garbage in the sea.”

“I think you're
overthink—”

“And if you can't
understand that, I don't know what to say to you!”

She dropped the
pile into the Priest's hands and marched away. I sighed and shook my head as
she went downstairs. The Priest neatly tied the corners of the cloth together,
closing the gears in a tidy pouch, and began to chuckle.

“Don't laugh,” I
said.

“It's funny,” he
said.

“It's not funny.”

“Oh, I think it
is.”

“I walked out
there with that girl on my back.”

“I know that.”

“My
back!
”

“Well, if you wanted
your life to make sense, you shouldn't have started traveling with a woman.”

“
You
travel
with a woman.”

The Red Priest
sympathetically patted me on the shoulder. “I do. But I never said I wanted
life to make sense.”

Night fell hard
that eve and, try as I did, I could not make myself fall asleep in the very
comfortable guest room that had been offered to me. I felt restless, and
leaving my hat and eyeglass behind, I got up and went for a walk, not really
sure of where I was headed. The ship was dark and silent, and each footstep I
took seemed to send a thousand splinters into the air. I ran my fingers down
the walls in the black until I realized that I was trying to find my way to the
surface. For no known reason to me, I dragged my tired feet up the stairs
toward a modest patch of moonlight that was shining through the cracks. I was
soon topside, alone with the night and the rolling wind. The air was cold,
odorous, but reaffirming. I moved to the edge of the railing and stared out
across the oil sea for awhile.

“What are you
doing out here?” said a voice behind me.

“Couldn't sleep,”
I said, not looking back. “And you?”

“No reason. I
thought you hated the smell.”

“I do.”

“Then why come
outside?”

“I don't know.
Maybe I'm getting used to it.”

“Oh.”

We stood without
words and watched the sky.

“I'm sorry for
earlier,” the girl said to me. “I didn't mean to make a scene.”

“Don't worry about
it, Doll.”

“And I know I made
you carry me all the way out—“

“It's forgotten.”

She paused for a
moment. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, Doll. I'm
just tired.”

“Then shouldn't
you be in bed?”

“That would make
sense.” I blew my bangs out of my face. “Probably why I'm not.”

I turned around to
tell a joke to the Doll, but lost my words when I saw her. She was out of her
normal clothing, instead dressed in a thin, pale nightgown that stopped above
her knees. The light hit her pale legs in just the right way to make her skin
slightly translucent, and I took a minute more than I probably should have to
look at the gears inside climb up her thighs. The wind was pushing the garment
against her body, outlining its girlish shape, and I had to instantly remember
to watch my eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said,
looking up at the sky. “So, uh, where'd you get the gown?”

“Madame B,” Doll
replied. “To sleep in.”

“Right. Sure. You
must, uh, feel pretty cold out here then.”

“I'm all right.”

“Uh, fine. Good.”

“Mister Pocket,”
she said, her voice serious and hushed.

I looked into her
eyes. Shyness and concern flickered through them.

“What's wrong?” I
asked.

“Did you forget?”
she asked.

“Forget?”

“Forget to ask.”

“Ask? What was I
supposed to...” I stopped in the dim light and saw it, the familiar object that
she was holding behind her back. The same object I had carried over sky and
earth for eternities from the moment I had met this girl. The key to the Doll.
And I remembered. I remembered the words etched into the shiny metal I had
first been given in the belly of a watch shop. I remembered the words I had
shared with the girl at the end of a long day on the run.

“What happens in
two weeks?” I had asked the Watchmaker's Doll.

And she had
answered me. “Ask me again in eleven days.”

Eleven days later
and here we were, standing in a different dark under the same sky. I
half-smiled an apology to her for letting myself forget. Her only reply was to
again put the turnkey in my hands. And once again, I rubbed my thumb over the
etched words.

“My father wrote
that,” the Watchmaker's Doll said to me.

Stunned, I nearly
dropped the key. “Your...father?”

“Yes.”

“You mean, uh, the
man who created you?”

She looked at me
like I was dense. “Isn't that what a father is?”

“Sorry.”

“Don't you want to
know?”

I nodded.

“Then ask,” she
said with the softest smile.

“All right,” I
replied, trying to match that impossible gentleness. “What happens in two
weeks, Doll?”

She approached and
put her hands over mine. We stood there on opposite sides of the key.

And we kissed.

The moon stayed
put as a few more lifetimes slid by in that moment.

When our lips at
last broke and pulled away, she squeezed my hands tighter and said it.

“After two weeks,”
she whispered. “I stop.”

My heart dropped.
“Stop? What do you mean? You're not going to—”

“Relax,” she said
with a giggle. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“But...I'm
confused. Then what do you mean by 'stop?'”

“When you turn the
key,” she whispered, “it starts me up, gets me good and spinning on my own for
awhile. But it doesn't last forever. Sooner or later, the key has to be spun
again.”

I nodded in the
dark. “Two weeks.”

“That's right,”
she said. “Every two weeks. My father wrote it on the key for me as a
reminder.”

“And tonight...”

She smiled and
nodded back to me. “...is two weeks.”

“So you're going
to…”

“Sleep,” she said.
“Very soon.”

“How soon?”

“Within the hour.”

“Oh.”

She must have
known that I wasn't completely understanding the implication behind her eyes.

“Mister Pocket,”
she said to me, “I want it to be you.”

“Me?”

“To turn my key
again.”

My breath fell
still in my throat.

“Why me?” was all
I could ask.

“Because you
turned it once,” she replied, “and I'd...like you to turn it again.”

The oil sea rolled
on around us.

“I'd be honored,”
I said.

I escorted the
Watchmaker's Doll to her quarters and sat at her bedside. Her bright hair
cascaded down the pillow like some reddened waterfall washing its way through
Paradise. I tried to tuck her turnkey into the blankets.

“No,” she said,
softly pushing it away. “You keep it tonight.”

“Why?”

“Let me sleep
through the night. Girls need their rest.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She
clutched her hands around the sheets and bundled herself tight. “Come and wake
me in the morning. Promise?”

“I promise.”

As the final
minutes ticked away, she pressed her pale lips into the shapes of the letters
that make my name.

“Thank you, Mister
Pocket,” she said. “Thank you for my first real weeks.”

“My pleasure.”

The light in her
eyes began to dim.

“Getting sleepy?”
I asked with a shy grin.

She nodded.
“Remind me in the morning, Mister Pocket, to tell you something important.”

“Why not now?”

She looked me in
the eyes and gave me that mischievous, girlish wink. “Because I have to go to
sleep.”

And with that, the
light fell from her eyes. Her eyelids slowly slid closed and the soft ticking
of clockwork beneath her chest came to a stop. She lay before me, completely at
rest.

Carefully, I took
her bare hand and kissed it.

“Sweet dreams,
Doll.”

With nothing more
to do, I blew out a candle, tucked the turnkey under my arm, and made my way
out of the room.

The red sun came
up in the morning and, exhausted as I was, I promptly got up, fumbled into my
clothes, and retrieved the turnkey. The
Lucidia
seemed so dead and empty
in the morning. I was the only one up, so I was careful to quiet my stroll. As
I reached the Doll's chamber, the feel of the girl's lips from the night before
reappeared on my own. My chest was tight and I took a moment to steady myself.
Then, with grand and precise strides, I entered the room, moving like an actor
onto a stage greatly awaiting its promised hero. The dawn filled my veins and
wrapped my bones. Life was absolutely new as I walked into the bedroom of the
Watchmaker's Doll.

And saw the empty
bed.

Dawn was snuffed
out of me like the candle flame I had blown out the night before.

The turnkey hit
the floorboards with a sharp clang. I was tugging on the sheets, looking
around, calling out her name.