Clockwork Looking Glass (Heart of Bronze Book 1)

by Michael Rigg

  I met Addy's eyes and bit my lower lip before flipping the page back and pointing to the Betsy Ross flag. "We'd won independence from Britain, right?"

  The young woman nodded and suppressed a yawn. "Mm'hm. Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere and all that. One if by land, two by sea, blah blah blah."

  My gaze traveled back to the fountain. As bits of historical memory started to fall into place, I began to piece together when it was that my reality changed. It was the Civil War. But why there? And how? How did I fit into it? And how did it account for flying cars and airships, witches and Tesla towers?

  I could feel Addy's eyes studying me for a moment before she decided that was enough history for a day. She pulled the book from my lap and placed it on the table between the two lounge chairs, then she stood and took my hand. "That's enough prattling about history for now, Alice. I wanna get you all cleaned up and rested before Bryce and Daddy come home. We need you lookin' all presentable like before suppertime tonight."

  As she lead me by the hand, my eyes stayed glued to the cover of the book. I didn't break contact with it until I was forced to watch where she was leading me. I was curious to know more and found myself wishing I'd paid closer attention to history in my own reality.

  She led me to a door in the west wing and opened it for me. I stepped in to a surprisingly cool room, massive with high domed ceilings and richly upholstered furniture. Paisley patterns decorated the cushions of love seats and a sofa. Four beautifully fashioned white chairs sat around a small tea table near the back wall which was all glass from floor to ceiling and looked out into an enormous garden. Lilies, roses and other flowers bloomed so bright they almost stung my eyes. "Oh... wow."

  Addy stood next to me. "That's my garden. Of course I don't do all the gardenin' m'self. Roddy helps me a lot with it, and so do some of the house hands."

  I nodded and continued to take in the opulence of the small room. Large oil paintings of a young girl next to a tall dog, next to a pony, and next to a horse with a blue ribbon hanging from its harness decorated the walls that weren't occupied by bookshelves. "Is that you, Addy?" I asked, nodding to the paintings.

  She smirked. "Daddy insists I have 'em hung here. I think it's prudish if ya ask me—havin' pictures of y'self in your area of the house, I declare."

  I couldn't help laugh just a bit as Addy moved off to a pair of French doors and stepped into the next room. She raised her voice so I could hear her as I moved in slowly, running my fingertips along the beautiful sofa as I brushed by it.

  She called out, "So, what's the last thing y'all recall before wakin' up in the tower? You got any memories at all? Nothin' at all about your kin?"

  "Well.... I guess I really must be a Yankee, according to my accent, but don't hold that against me. It's really all I have to go by." I smirked at my own attempt of humor. I heard the squeak of a spigot and water rushing into a tub. I stepped further into the room and saw Addy drawing a bath in the adjoining room. Looking around, I saw two other doors, one that went into the main part of the house. The other, I guessed, was her bedroom.

  "Oh, you may sound like one," Addy smiled as she returned to me, wiping her hands with a small white towel, and indicated one of the chairs by the glass wall. Nodding, I sat down at the small table. "But you ain't no Yankee girl, I can tell that much."

  "How so?"

  "Well, for starters, you raised your tone to daddy. I expect a Yankee girl woulda fell down cryin' at the sight o' what he was doin' to Bry. Only a spirited belle would have the gumption to stand up to such a mess." She sat next to me at the small white table and patted my hand. "Don't you worry. Daddy's thunders always pass—even these."

  "What'll happen? With the contracts, I mean?"

  "Well," she sighed, "I expect Daddy and Bry will get it handled. That's why they're goin' to Baton Rouge. That's where the Thinkin' Machines are. I expect daddy's gonna pull some levers and such, set the world to rights." She rolled her eyes. “He always does.”

  I nodded absently. "Really? That's all there is to it?"

  Adeline smirked disinterestedly. "I don't care much for politics." She shrugged. "I just expect that's what's gonna happen. Clay would know more, but he's too self-absorbed, ya ask me."

  I nodded again, then smiled and blinked. Then I took a chance. “Addy... what do you know about pale men brandishing electric forks?” I could see rather than hear her sharp intake of breath. Addy glanced left and right before leaning across the table. I reflexively leaned closer as well. I figured she was about to whisper her answer. “You mustn't talk about them,” she said in a low voice.

  “Why not? Who are they?”

  “Ssh!” Addy glanced around again. “You mustn't. Land o' lies, Alice, you are surely a rare one to be sportin' for that kinda trouble.”

  “Trouble? Why would they be trouble? What do the forks mean?” Addy jumped up. "Oh, let me get you some nice chamomile tea you can sip whilst ya bathe." I reached out to stop her, but she was up with a spring. "Oh, don't. I'm fine.”

  “It's no trouble t'all." She pulled a sash hanging from the ceiling by the door and a voice came through a tiny funnel embedded in the door jamb. I closed my mouth. I decided to file away that information about the fork people and lie low. It was a man's voice on the intercom, British, and I assumed another butler like Lucien. "Yes, Miss Landry?"

  "Roddy, would you be a dear and bring in some chamomile tea? I have a guest."

  The voice buzzed back, "Yes, Miss Landry."

  Addy smiled and winked at me before crossing the room to the bath beyond the French doors. Her voice came back. "The water's a trifle hot, but should be snug as biscuits by the time you prepare your tea and strip down to yer all-togethers.”

  A lump formed in my throat as I remembered changing in front of Pandora... and her reaction to the marks on my back, but I swallowed it when she crossed the room and said she'd leave me alone to bathe. There was no way I'd let her see the scars after she confirmed Pandora's own reaction to them.

  "I'll give ya your privacy and go finish with the horses. I'll fetch you some proper clothes, but I'll start ya off with some bedclothes." She entered the door closest to me. I saw a large room decorated in lavender, and a four-poster bed with white mosquito netting over it. The bed itself was nearly four feet off the ground and looked as soft as a cloud. "This here's my bedroom. You can crawl right in if ya like, catch up on some rest once you've cleaned up."

  I smiled as she busily crossed back to the bathroom with an armful of clothes. "Thank you, Addy. You're very kind."

  Addy offered me a grin. "Oh, you save your sugar. I'm just doin' what's right by a guest in a Christian home."

  I allowed myself a sigh of relief after concealing a 'huff' at the thought of Lord Landry being the master of anything remotely Christian. After the reception we all got from the master of the estate I had been deathly afraid that I'd be hitchhiking my way back to my memories.

  A moment later the running water stopped and Addy joined me at the table. She let loose a sigh of her own and brushed back a loose strand of hair. I was about to ask about Bryce and Lydia McFerran when the door opened —

  And I jumped up, knocking my chair over and stumbling back against a bookcase. My hands came up on instinct, the heel of my right hand cocked for a punch, my left arm angled out as a shield.

  Though the man coming into the room was dressed in what appeared to be a white waistcoat and carried a silver tray with a carafe of tea, it was his face that shocked me. His head looked to be wrapped in stitched leather like bandages made from animal hide. He had no nose or ears that I could tell. In fact, his head was almost completely round but too small to be a mask. The eyes were round brass goggles with black lenses and the mouth was a smaller brass ring with a speaker grill in it. The top of the man's head was capped with a copper bowler and a short antennae. A constant hiss-clicking sound came from his chest. Gears and levers turned and clicked in the exposed abdomen below the waistcoat.

  Seeing
my reaction, he stopped and stood up straight, his head tic-tic-ticking as he turned to face Addy.

  "Apologies, Mistress," he said in the same mechanical voice I'd heard on the house's intercom. Then I realized it wasn't an intercom at all but a series of tubes through the house, and this was... a robot?

  "He's mechanical." Addy stood and approached the clockwork man. "Ya mean to tell me you ain't never seen a Copperheart before?" She took the tray from him and motioned toward me with her head. "This here's Roddy. He's my personal valet. Daddy wouldn't let me have a real man butler. He suggested I was too pretty to have a man waitin' on me what wasn't my husband." She rolled her eyes and waved her hand in a Scarlett O'hara “la-di-da” sort of way that made me smile.

  I relaxed my pose and stepped toward them. "Roddy" was slightly shorter than Addy and clank-snap-hissed when he walked. The gear works of the mechanized butler weren't really loud, but he really wasn't equipped to sneak up on anyone. As he approached, he reached out a white gloved hand with four fingers. His movements were rigid and made more clicking sounds throughout his torso. "I am Roddy, Miss. I am very pleased to meet you."

  I glanced to Addy who nodded that it was okay for me to take his hand. She smiled though her brow furrowed. She said, "I can't believe you never seen one. Granted, they don't leave the home or they'd shut down from lack of steam. I don't think they're as popular in Yankee homes. Not like Property."

  I bristled slightly at the mention of Property, but shook it off. I took Roddy's hand. Its—his—grip was surprisingly gentle. "I'm Alice."

  "Alice," he repeated. "Name remembered. So good to meet you, Madam."

  I turned to Addy as she motioned Roddy away with a smile and a, "That'll be all."

  I moved back to my chair and sat back down as the door closed behind the robot butler. I said flatly, "Property."

  Addy poured our tea and smiled. "Yes, the Yankees are more interested in that kind of thing—though they're not unheard of down these parts."

  "Slaves?"

  Addy laughed as she slid a cup and saucer toward me. "Heavens no. Did you forget what I told ya about President Lee? Property are artists, intellectuals, writers of fiction, bohemians, that kind of thing."

  I frowned slightly. "Artists are kept as Property?"

  She shrugged as she blew across her cup. "Those who work as Property, yes. Actors, performers, prostitutes." She raised an eyebrow as she sipped, then said, "I hear they get paid quite handsomely to entertain rich Yankees. ...Yankees have such disgusting tastes."

  "Can they quit? I mean... If they're not slaves, they can quit, right?" I asked because I was curious about the perceived difference between servants and indentured servants in this reality. Then I remembered the odd looks of the guards in Philadelphia as Bryce identified me as Property. Considering that I was only wearing his coat with nothing underneath, they must have thought I was his personal whore, or worse. I felt a burning sensation behind my eyes as I frowned.

  Addy nodded with a wave of her hand. "Like any other job, sure, but I never heard of one who has. What they get paid...?" She waved her hand again as if not wanting to even consider the amount.

  We sat for a bit and sipped our tea. While all these new bits of information reeled around my brain, I'd forgotten all about Bryce and Lydia. It didn't seem like much of a consequence anyway. Now I had clockwork servants, and being passed off as a high-priced prostitute to think of, possibly being abducted quickly to Seven Orchards because Bryce thought of me only as a spy. I found myself wondering if anyone had picked up Lord Landry's paper. I was thinking of giving Bryce a few whacks with it myself.

  As Addy finished her tea and glanced to the clock on a nearby table, she stood with a slight curtsy. "Oh, I should get back to my chores before Momma sends Savannah out huntin' for me." I stood and followed her to the door. She showed me how to lock the door from the inside. "I don't want Roddy to give you a start again," she'd explained with a quick wink. "I'll come knock 'round lunch time and we'll eat out on the veranda together."

  "That'll be nice," I smiled.

  Moments later I peeled out of the shabby pirate clothes Pandora had given me and eased into the bath. I relished the sensation of the hot water, the steam caressing my pores, and the sweet lavender smell of the soap as I washed myself. Though the triple-dot scar on my lower back throbbed in the hot bath, I took a long time in the tub, at least long enough to pucker my fingers, and just before I started to drift asleep. I climbed out of the tub and wrapped my hair in a towel. I dried off using the other fluffy towels Addy gave me, slipped into the night dress and yawned as I made my way to the huge cloud-like bed. I couldn't think of anything else but sleep. The bed was infinitely more comfortable than it looked and I fell almost instantly into peaceful oblivion.

  I don't know which was more disturbing: the nightmare that soon followed, or the fact someone had been watching me while I slept.

  CHAPTER 18, “Corporate Take-Over”

  Bradford Thorne smiled to his partner, Nigel Wolfe, as the two men entered the promenade conference room high atop the Center of Trade. The shades of the windows looking out over the city were open wide, the long mahogany table freshly polished, the two tall leather chairs at the end of the room gleamed as the mid-morning sun washed over them. The room smelled of leather, lemon furniture cleaner and fresh deep-roasted coffee.

  Thorne was in the best mood of his life. Frustration completely abated, he looked around the wide conference room smiling at every stolen treasure, every richly polished wooden chair, every thick Persian tapestry. His eyes stopped on the secretary who prepared a silver carafe of coffee. "I'll have my usual, Miss Norris."

  "Yessir, Mr. Thorne." Miss Norris, a curvaceous brunette who always had Thorne's eye, was one of the acquisitions he dreamed of but had yet to take. He wanted her to hear the tales from the other girls, to make her wonder why she hadn't been pulled into a late night meeting, to make her want him. Curiosity killed the cat. And Bradford Thorne loved killing cats.

  As Nigel Wolfe huffed and puffed his bulk toward the wider of the two chairs, untucking the paper from under his arm and flapping it open, Thorne stopped at one of the tall windows and stood with his arms folded across his chest. Wolfe took an offered cup of coffee as he passed Miss Norris without acknowledging her and exhaled heavily as he plopped into the chair. He carefully rested the steaming cup on the arm of the chair as he opened the paper and began scanning the markets.

  Miss Norris brought Thorne his coffee. "Here you are, Mr. Thorne."

  He took the cup and saucer with a slight bow and twitch of his handlebar mustache. "Thank you, Miss Norris. And may I say that your dress brings out your full attractiveness."

  The young woman bowed her head slightly, her expression unreadable though her blush was obvious. "That will be all, Miss Norris... for now." Thorne leered as he watched the woman leave, his eyes following the swivel of her swaying backside as he imagined his hands on her hips to steady himself as he took her from behind. Once she was gone, Thorne smiled and sipped his coffee, then set the cup and saucer down on a sideboard near one of the windows. He hooked his arms behind his back, sighed contentedly and bounced on his heels as he called out to his partner, "It's a glorious day, Nigel. Glorious."

  "Indeed, Bradford."

  "Within a day or two we'll be venturing to Atlantis herself!" He held up a proclaiming finger before resuming his stance. "And I will be on the submersible that will take us there."

  "Indeed, Bradford," Wolfe nodded behind the paper. Thorne picked up his coffee cup and smiled at the aroma. It was perfect. It was exactly how he liked it. Maybe Miss Norris would be his personal Property on the journey below the waves. Maybe the pinging and puckering of the submarine's hull under all that pressure would frighten her into his arms. The more shaken the cherry, the sweeter the juice, he mused. Thorne cleared his throat. "I say, Nigel."

  "Yes, Bradford?"

  "I have a mad notion to have the Landry Holdings Company investigated by t
he Confederate Council of Corporate Affairs."

  The newspaper lowered and Wolfe looked to his partner with a raised eyebrow.

  "What. You don't think I'm serious?" Thorne took another sip of his coffee as he turned and enjoyed the view. "Why stop now? Once the C.C.C.A. finds out what Landry lost between those fat fingers of his, they're bound to be curious. Even somewhat irritated." Smiling too broadly to drink more coffee, he turned and walked the cup to the conference table. He looked up at Wolfe. "What?"

  Wolfe's head dipped back below the news. "Atlantis is the single most important discovery in history, Bradford. Why risk war by going after the small potatoes?"

  Thorne didn't miss a beat, though he frowned deeply. "Because Jefferson Landry needs to learn a lesson. He and that no-account soldier boy of a son of his, running off after some tail." Thorne scowled and folded his arms. He wasn't an idiot. While what Nigel Wolfe said was true, that could only mean that the woman who pulled Bryce Landry from the contract signing was twice as important as the discovery of Atlantis. He had to know who she was.

  Wolfe made no comment. He continued reading the paper.

  Thorne turned back to his window and muttered. "I swear, Nigel. Frustration would build if not for Grubbs' report this morning."

  Wolfe made a short humming noise, then, "Should hope that it would be good news, Bradford. I, personally, can't wait to hear what the chap has in store for us."

  "Indeed, Nigel.... Indeed."

  ~~~~~~~

  The two ghouls hissed and chattered their teeth at each other, red eyes reflecting the hunger they felt, their shared pangs. They huddled in the darkness of the master's throne room and sniffed at the air. Oh, such delicious flesh approaches.