Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (9 page)

“She's a toy,”
Kitt said at last.

She faced us with
a smile under deep, sadder eyes. She clasped her gloves together as her key
continued to turn, spinning ever softly the delicate balance of clockwork that
her crafter had painstakingly cobbled beneath her thin, near translucent skin.

We had found the
Watchmaker's Doll.

“A-ha!
Now
are
finally getting somewhere, Pocket! Mechanical women moving on a spinning key!
Just fantastic!”

“Clockwork under
skin. I swear on my life. And it's wo-
man,
not wo-
men.
There was
only one.”

“Too bad.”

“You don't seem to
be taking this very seriously.”

“You're right,
fine. Let's assume this is all true, and no one else in the world had
discovered this before you.”

“And Kitt.”

“And Kitt, sure.
So what then, grand adventurer? Did this turnkey girl swear you to an oath of
secrecy or reveal some glorious secret as a reward for her freedom?”
“She...um...made us scones.”

“Scones?”

“With jam.”

Kitt and I found
ourselves sitting on a pair of short stools in one of the dusty side rooms off
of one of the dusty corridors in that labyrinth of a basement. The room also
served as a makeshift kitchen and we watched in amazement as the Watchmaker's
Doll slopped dough and flour together.

She had insisted
on making us breakfast. Strange first response, in my opinion, to a pair of
strangers who have just broken into your home. But I was hungry, so I didn't
get vocal about it. Kitt did point out that it was the middle of the night, but
she said that the time was close enough to breakfast to have breakfast, so we
had breakfast. And we didn't feel like arguing about proper timing to a girl
who lived in a watch shop.

“You can cook?” I
had asked.

“I think so,” she
had replied. “Probably.”

If she was the
Doll, then it seemed the three of us were playing house. I'm sure Kitt and I
should have spent this time pondering on the make and workings of the
sophisticated and quite revolutionary piece of machinery that was before us,
but we were both more concerned with being accommodating guests to our hostess.
Besides, she seemed to take insult to words like “machinery” being directed
towards her.

“How...” Kitt
whispered to me while she stuck the doughy globs into an oven. “How is this
possible?”

“I haven't a clue.
I never dreamed something like...like
this
...”

“I know! It's like
something out of a storybook. Do you think she knows?”

“She seems to. I
mean, she has a key in her back.”

“Maybe we should
ask.”

“That seems rude.”

“Oh.” Kitt rested
his elbows on his knees. “Why is she making us breakfast?”
“Because she wanted to,” I whispered.

“Why are we
letting her?”

“Because I'm
hungry. How long did you say this place has been closed up?”

“I forget.”

“Mmm...”

“Worried the
food's already off?”

“Not enough not to
eat it.”

At last, the
Watchmaker's Doll came over with another smile and a pan of lopsided scones.
She then sat down on a third stool and produced a sticky jar of strawberry jam.

“My favorite,” she
said.

Favorite? Surely a
woman filled with cogs and gears wouldn't...

“The lady first!”
she announced with vigor, lifting a smeared scone to her lips. And then, quite
astonishingly, she ate! She just...ate. Swallowed and everything. She continued
this until the entire thing was gone and then excused herself for, as she put
it, “a momentary wash.”

“What is she
doing, eating like that?” Kitt whispered.

“Probably making
her gears sticky.”

“Is that why she
left? A wash, she said. Is she...
cleaning
...her insides?”

It was an unusual
thought, but then I remembered the self-powered rubbish bins, consuming
and   burning away edible scraps. Could she be of similar design, or
just simply a strawberry enthusiast? At any rate, I seriously doubted that she
actually
needed
to eat, but the practice certainly wasn't foreign to her
and she seemed to gain much enjoyment from it. Such strangeness lies in
science.

“I don't know,
Kitt. Ask me about the workings of life before you ask me about the workings of
women.”

“But she's not a
normal woman.”

“There's no such
thing.”

We bit into our
scones, which, despite a little bit of blackening on the bottom, were quite
edible and quite delicious. I was well into my second and Kitt was licking jam
off of his fingers when the Doll returned. She was carrying my bottle of faerie
juice.

“Oh,” I said.
“Right. I nearly forgot that.”

“It's yours?” she
said, shaking the bubbles around. “What's in there?”

“My essence,” I
said with a laugh.

“You keep your
essence in a bottle?”

“Doesn't
everyone?” I took a thoughtful chew on my meal and smiled to myself.

“What does that
mean?” she said.

I thought it over.
“I'm not sure. I was trying to sound clever.”

“I see.”

“Did it sound
clever?”

“It sounded
somewhat clever.”

“All right then.
I'll mark it as a success.”

The Doll regained
her seat and watched me and Kitt eat.

“So,” Kitt said,
talking through his food. “How long you been on your own here?”

She tilted her
head to the side.

“I'm...not sure.”

“Lost track of the
days?”

“I was never
following them,” she replied.

“Oh.”

“I've been
sleeping a lot.”

“So you sleep,
then. How does that—“

“You're being
nosy,” I interjected.

“I don't care,”
said the Doll.

“No, he's right,”
Kitt said. “Too many questions. I talk too much sometimes.”

“That so?” I dryly
questioned.

“You can talk if
you want,” Kitt offered to her. “Give us a few questions.”

“All right,” she
said.

I took a third
scone. Her first question was a logical one, but the timing of it took me and
Kitt by surprise.

“Who are you?” she
asked us.

We looked at each
other. Of course. We had been too busy conversing and enjoying jam to realize
that no one present at this cluster of stools and jars had ever made a former
introduction.

“Right,” I said.

“Right,” Kitt
said. “We never told you our names or anything. You don't know us at all.”

“I know you are a
master of the shadows,” the Doll said to Kitt. “So I would figure that you are
thieves.”

“Very good!” Kitt
said. “Clever girl!”

“
He's
the
thief,” I maintained. “I just followed him down the hole.”

She nodded. “So
you are a thief and a follower.”

“No, don't call me
a follower. That's sounds so...weak-willed. Besides, I just came in to search
for my bottle.”

“So you are a
searcher?”

“I'm Will Pocket.”

She smiled and
daintily shook my hand.

“Mister Pocket.”

Kitt's hand was
next.

“And I'm Kitt
Sunner.”

“Mister Sunner.”

“Just Kitt.”

“Mister Kitt,
then.”

“Still too
formal.”

“All right,
Kitt-Kitt.”

“Oh my...”

I laughed and
suddenly realized that I couldn't remember the last time I had had such
amusement and, well, fun amongst complete strangers. I think the trick about
people that become not-strangers in your life is that when they enter your
life, they don't appear very stranger-like to begin with.

Strange.

However, I was
still sane enough not to hang around an abandoned building with a street thief
and a hostess that was currently lingering somewhere between shut-in and
jostled property.

“Well,” I said,
standing and finishing my last scone. “Thank you very much for the meal. Quite
tasty.”

“Thank you, thank
you,” she said. Then suddenly, her eyes changed to suspicion. “You're not
leaving, are you?”

“Oh...well...it
is
late.”

“So stay here.”

“I don't want to
bother.”

“It's more bother
to leave. Sounds like rain.”

“Yup,” Kitt added.
“It's probably still coming down. Besides, don't try your luck. You think you
can find another free magic French inn?”

“I thought you
weren't listening to—”

“Don't you like it
here?” the Doll asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“Is it me?”

“Of course not.”

“Is it him?”

Kitt made a silly
frown. I elbowed him.

“No. I mean, he
did take off with my bottle, threw it through a window, and stole my wallet...”

“Empty wallet,”
Kitt said.

“
Empty
wallet!”
the Doll repeated, trying to establish camaraderie, I think.

I was cornered.
And the place was dry. And warm. With jam.

“Are there beds?”
I asked.

“I don't know,”
she said.

“Where do you
sleep?” Kitt asked her.

“Where you found
me,” she said, as if it was the most commonly-known fact in existence.

“All right,” I
said, dropping back onto the stool. “I'll stay.”

“Excellent!” The
Doll celebrated with a firm screwing on of the jam jar lid.

“Excellent...” I
repeated quietly to myself.

As I fell asleep
that night, tucked into my overcoat with a bag of rotting and therefore quite
soft potatoes propped behind my head, I realized that neither I nor Kitt had
ever asked for her name, if she even had one. Her last words to us before
leaving for the glass case were “Dolly bids you a good night!”

Dolly...

There seemed
something significant about it, something I feel that I almost grasped, but
then I fell asleep.

I woke up the next
morning...late...to the sound of Kitt banging around at the other end of the
room. I was surprised...and a little impressed. I half-expected him to take off
in the night with as much as he could carry. I got up, attempted to stretch the
soreness from my body, and yawned.

“Morning Kitt,” I
said, scratching my head. “How are you?”

“Morning Pocket,”
he replied. I glanced over his shoulder and noticed he was stuffing clocks into
a bag. Sigh. I should have figured as much. Kitt noticed me looking and
grinned.

“I found a bag.”

“I see that.”

He nodded and
returned to his plundering. I decided not to get involved. If I had taken to
that philosophy sooner, I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
Still...

“Kitt, I don't
want you to take these things.”

“Well, if it
helps, I'm not really taking anything yet. I'm just finding. Finding clocks.
And I'm stuffing. Stuffing a bag. And later I will be carrying. Carrying a bag,
and—“

My voice got
harder. “Kitt. I'm serious. Stop.”

He dropped the act
and frowned at me. I think he was a little hurt at the tone.

“I don't
understand,” he said. “Why, suddenly—“

“Because, you
know.
Her.
”

“What?”

“Because this
place isn't abandoned anymore. There is a living resident here and I don't want
you stealing from her.”

“Do you think
she'd really mind?”

“I don't care.
I
mind. I don't want to see you leave this place with anything more valuable than
a scrap of paper.”

“Pocket, really?”

“Promise me!”

“Fine.” He grabbed
a handful of old papers from the tables and made a big show of stuffing his
pockets with them. “There! You happy? Just papers!”

He grabbed some
more and shoved into his clothes. I wasn't amused.

“You're
hilarious,” I grumbled.

“Thanks,” he
grumbled back. “So, while you’re up there on your pedestal of morality, you
wanna tell me what I'm supposed to do for survival with these papers? For
food?”

“I have decided something!”
said the Doll, walking into the room. We quieted and gave her our combined
attention. She struck the pose of a royal about to deliver a great address to
her people.

“I think we should
go outside,” she continued.

“Outside?” I
asked.

“Yes.”

“Where exactly
outside?”

“Around,” she
said. “Around and about.”

“Uh...I don't know
if that's such a good idea.”

“I won't make much
noise.”

“Sorry. Not sold.”

“It's probably
much safer here for you,” Kitt said. “And you've got that nice glass case back
there. Very fancy. Haven't seen one of those outside.” This angered her and she
went away for a few minutes. Kitt started frowning again.

“Was that the
wrong thing to say?” he asked.

“Apparently.”

“Do you think she
hates me?”

The Doll burst
through the door again, key spinning wildly, with an old basket in her hands.
She was smiling.

“I found this.”

“All...all right,”
Kitt said, confused.

“You can have
picnics with this, yes?”

“You want to go on
a picnic?”

“Around and
about.”

I couldn't help
but smile. “She's cute,” I said under my breath to Kitt. I think she heard me,
because she started to grin.

“I've never been
outside,” she said.

“Ever?” Kitt
asked.

“Never.”

“Hmm...well, I
suppose you wouldn't have. But then how do you know about picnics?”

“I know many
things.”

“Spoons,” I
offered.

“Yes, spoons. And
picnics and many things. You do not have to go outside to know about it.”

“Okay,” Kitt said.
“That's fair. A picnic it is, then.”

She was all
smiles.

“Have fun,” I
said.

She was all
clouds.

“You're coming
too,” she said.