This Monstrous Thing

by Mackenzi Lee

  “Don’t you?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t ask,” I replied through gritted teeth.

  “December the twenty-second,” she answered. Her eyes followed mine up to the clock. “The clock strikes again on Christmas Eve. Did you know that?”

  “Yes.” I pulled my gaze away from the clock tower and instead took the leaflet out of my pocket and spread it flat against my knee. “Why are you handing these out?”

  “They asked me to.”

  “Who asked you?”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m not supposed to tell because you aren’t made of metal. You aren’t like me.”

  “If I fix your foot, will you tell me?”

  She considered this, teeth still working on her bottom lip. She didn’t say no.

  Clémence returned a few minutes later with a bottle of vinegar. I poured some onto my glove and scrubbed at the rusted joint until it consented to bend again. It badly needed to be replaced and the whole foot could use a good cleaning, but I didn’t have the means for either. The girl watched me with her elbows resting on her knees and her nose wrinkled at the smell.

  “You need shoes,” I told her.

  “No money.”

  “Then you need to wrap your feet up better. When the metal gets wet, it rusts, and that gets under your skin.”

  “And then your foot’s going to fall off and probably take your leg with it,” Clémence said. I hadn’t realized it was meant to be a joke, but the girl giggled.

  The gears in her foot snapped against each other, and I slid my finger along them to guide the track for a few rounds before I let them go again. The girl straightened her leg so fast she almost knocked me in the face. “I can move my toes,” she said. “I’ve never been able to move my toes before.”

  “Here, keep this.” I handed her the vinegar bottle. “In case it rusts again.”

  She shoved the bottle into her hat, fingers snarling up in her black hair. “I’m Mirette,” she said.

  “I’m Alasdair,” I replied. “And this is Clémence. And it would be magnificent if you could tell us who you’re handing out leaflets for.”

  Mirette rotated her foot in its socket, watching it work with her head cocked to one side. She was so filthy and fragile, like a china doll dug up from the soil. “They said if I’m going to stay with them, I have to do my part.”

  “Stay where?” Clémence asked at the same time I said, “Part of what?”

  “The Cogworks,” Mirette said.

  Clémence looked at me, and I explained, “It’s a factory in the north quarter of the city. They make the clockwork parts for the carriages and the omnibuses there.”

  “That’s where I stay,” Mirette said. “With Frankenstein’s Men.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  She glared at me, and for a moment I thought I’d lost her, but then she looked down at her foot again. “People don’t treat us right, so we’re going to make them. We won’t be pushed down and stepped on anymore.” It sounded like she was reciting something she’d heard, words that meant little to her, though she knew the feeling behind them. “This man”—she tapped her finger against the drawing of the resurrected man on the front of her leaflet—“is going to come for us, and he is going to lead us. We show him that we’re ready for him, and then he’ll come and save us.”

  “Frankenstein is a book,” I said. “This man”—I thrust my leaflet at Mirette—“he isn’t real. He’s just in a book.”

  She shook her head. “You’re wrong. We’re waiting for him. Me and Frankenstein’s Men.”

  That made everything inside me go cold and shaky. I couldn’t decide what was more unfair—that this small, pale girl had nowhere to go, or that she wanted to use Oliver to do something about that. I creased the leaflet and shoved it in my pocket as I stood.

  Mirette grabbed my coat sleeve and used me to haul herself up. I resisted the urge to shake her off. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the Cogworks,” she said.

  “We’ll keep it secret,” Clémence replied.

  Mirette tugged on my sleeve again, and I looked down. “Thank you for fixing my foot, Shadow Boy,” she said. Her hand slid into mine and gave one quick pulse, and then she trotted off down the street, steps big and buoyant on the cleaned springs of her foot.

  I watched her go, my fingers worrying the edge of the leaflet in my pocket as I turned it over in my mind. I forgot Clémence was there until she nudged her fist against my arm. “Here, take this.”

  I opened my palm and she dropped half the coins from the pawned necklace into it.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Something to eat; you look wretched.”

  “’Course I look wretched,” I snapped. “Apparently all the clockwork men in Geneva are waiting for my resurrected brother to come lead their uprising against the city.”

  “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “People are fighting back. It’s brave.”

  “It’s bleeding stupid.”

  “Says a boy who’s never been thrown out on the streets because he’s got metal pieces in him.” She swiped her hair out of her face and glared at me so hard I looked away. “Do you know the address for where we’re meeting Geisler?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then, I’ll meet you there.”

  “What?” I looked up, but she was already walking away from me, hands in her pockets, in the same direction Mirette had gone. “Where are you going?”

  She didn’t even turn. “There’s something I need to do.”

  I thought about chasing her down and demanding to know exactly what it was, but I was still annoyed with her for nothing in particular, and being apart after days together was sort of appealing. So I turned in the opposite direction and started off alone. The coins in my pocket danced against the crumpled leaflet.

  Geisler had chosen a run-down public house sloping into the Rhone for our meeting place. The sunset had collapsed into the foothills by the time I arrived and darkness had taken its place across the copper rooftops. Geisler was already there, finishing supper at a table by the fire. “No problems?” he asked as I slid onto the bench across from him.

  “None.”

  “Good, I got in smoothly as well. Perhaps the city’s security is not as tight as they like to boast.” He glanced around. “Where’s Mademoiselle Le Brey?”

  “She . . . We got split up,” I said. “She should be along soon.”

  “I’ve got work for her.”

  “You knew about the magnets,” I said before I could stop myself.

  He looked up from his supper. “Of course.”

  “She could have been caught.”

  “But she wasn’t. Alasdair, is something wrong?”

  “Is it because of Frankenstein?”

  His brow creased. “I hadn’t thought of that. Did you hear something?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I was just wondering if you knew.”

  He frowned at me, and for a moment I was certain he saw straight through my lie. Then he picked up his knife again and said, “Do you want supper? You look half starved.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Go get something to eat. Your parents wouldn’t forgive me if I let you waste away.”

  He tucked back into his plate, and I sat in stupid silence for a moment before I stood up and wandered over to the bar. I was so sick with the weight of everything, I wasn’t sure I could keep any food down, but I didn’t want to go back and sit with Geisler, so I just stared at the board for a while. I could feel the barkeeper’s eyes on me.

  After a while I heard the inn’s door open, but I didn’t turn until a tight hand closed on my arm and started pulling me away from the bar. I yelped in surprise and whipped around, ready to fight or run. But it was Clémence.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed at her, but she didn’t answer. She tugged me after her to the corner on the opposite side of the room, then
put her hands on my shoulders and twisted me sharply so I was facing away from the door. Her cheeks were very pink. “God’s wounds, what was that about?” I demanded.

  “Don’t turn around.” Her voice was low and fast, and her eyes darted behind me as she spoke.

  “What’s wrong? Where have you been?”

  “Keep your back to the door.”

  “No, tell me what’s going on.” I started to turn, but she grabbed my face and pulled me back toward her.

  “Alasdair.” She put her hand on my cheek. “Trust me.”

  I swallowed hard and held her gaze. She looked more serious than I’d seen her before.

  “All right.”

  We stood for a moment, eyes locked, then I felt a rush of cold air on my back as the door opened again. Clémence glanced toward it, and I felt her fist close around my arm. All around us, the room went quiet, like everyone had stopped what they were doing and was holding their breath. I couldn’t see what we was happening, but I held my breath too.

  Then, from behind me, I heard someone say, “Dr. Basil Geisler, you’re under arrest.”

  My heartbeat was suddenly so loud it was hard to hear anything over it. Geisler said something I couldn’t make out; then there was the sharp scrape of a bench being pulled back. Someone near us gasped.

  “He’s not fighting,” Clémence said quietly. “He’s going with them.”

  Heavy footsteps crossed between the tables and passed by where we were standing. I glanced over my shoulder just for a moment and saw the backs of two police officers as they led Geisler away. He looked startled, and somehow old and harmless between the two tall men in their greatcoats with rifles slung over their shoulders. In the doorway, he looked back and his eyes found Clémence and me. It was good the police had hold of him, for he looked like he wanted to leap across the room and skin us alive.

  But then they were out on the street, swallowed by the darkness. There was a flurry of noise beyond—the raised voices of more officers, the shrill hiss of a steam-powered carriage—then one of the officers slammed the inn door and the noise in the room returned at twice the level it had been before. I took a deep breath, and Clémence’s grip on my arm relaxed. I hadn’t realized how tightly she was holding me until she let go.

  We stood in silence for a moment, both of us breathing hard. Then she said, “You’re shaking,” and I realized I was. “Do you need to sit down?”

  She didn’t wait for me to respond, just led me by the hand to a bench against the wall, and we both sank down onto it. Everyone was going wild around us. One of the servers looked like she was about to faint, and the barkeeper kept saying, “Geisler . . . Dr. Geisler . . . here! I made him a drink!”

  “You turned him in,” I said to Clémence.

  She shrugged. “Slavery doesn’t really breed loyalty.”

  “Bleeding hell.” I still felt sort of unsteady, and I put my head in my hands for a moment.

  “I thought it would make things easier.” She paused, then added, “For both of us.”

  “It does. That was . . .” I looked up at her. “You really are something.”

  “I like to think so. Damn, I think we’ve been spotted.” I followed her gaze across the room. One of the servers had leaned across the counter to speak to the barkeeper and was pointing in our direction. “We don’t have much time,” she hissed. “Geisler will return the favor first chance he has and tell the police about us, and probably your brother as well. We need to get you and Oliver out of Switzerland.”

  “What about my parents? I think they’re in prison here. I need to help them.”

  “I’ll stay. See what I can do about that.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “There’s no danger for me here, not like there is for you.”

  “No, I mean . . . you don’t have to do that for me. They’re not your concern.”

  She fiddled with a loose thread on her coat sleeve, then turned her face up to the ceiling. “I have to tell you something. But you have to promise you won’t hate me after I do.”

  “I think I owe you too much to hate you for anything.”

  “Don’t make any promises yet.” She snapped the thread, then tugged her sleeves down over her hands and took a deep breath.

  “Just say it.”

  “I’m the reason your parents were arrested.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “I mean, I didn’t . . . It was Geisler. He told me their names and said I was to give them to the police when I arrived, then find you. He wanted to be certain you didn’t have any reason to stay in Geneva. I’m so sorry, Alasdair, I was only doing what he told me to.” When I didn’t say anything, she knocked me with her elbow. “See, I told you you’d be angry.”

  Part of me wanted to be—I could feel a hot fist tightening inside my chest, and it would have been so easy to loose it on her. But I had so few allies at that moment that it felt stupid to push her away. And she had turned Geisler in, and kept the police from finding me, and now she was looking at me with her eyebrows knit together and her mouth tight, the most sincere I’d seen her, like she didn’t know what she’d do if I stormed off and left her behind. And she was still here. She hadn’t run from me yet. “I’m angry,” I said, “but not at you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It was Geisler. You worked for him, I understand, you were only doing what you were told. At least we got to return the favor.”

  Her mouth twisted into a half smile. “Bastard got what was coming to him.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I want to help get your parents out of prison. I can’t make what I did right, but I can at least do that.” When I didn’t say anything, she added, “I know you’re not used to people being on your side, but I am. I swear to it.” She put her hand on top of mine, and when she squeezed my fingers, the knot inside me loosened a bit. “You should eat something.”

  “No, I’m all right. I need to go see Oliver.”

  “When was the last time you ate?”

  “Sometime in Germany?” Other than the chouquettes the night before, I couldn’t remember the last meal I’d had.

  “Let’s have some supper and then we can go see your brother. You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”

  I didn’t like the idea of waiting a moment longer than I had to, but it didn’t seem likely Clémence would back down. “Yes, Mother,” I muttered. She laughed.

  We left the inn and followed the Rhone as it wound its way through the city, across Vieille Ville, purposely avoiding the braziers and the music rising from the Christmas market. Above it, the black hands of the tower clock stood out like a shadow puppet show against the illuminated glass face.

  Nearly everything outside the Christmas market was closed, but we found a man selling questionable-smelling cabbage and sausage off a cart on the rim of the financial district and sat on the steps of a church while we ate. I still had no appetite, but I choked it down because Clémence was watching to make certain I did. I felt better afterward, but I didn’t tell her.

  “It’s a long climb to the castle,” I told her as we finished. “You don’t have to come.”

  “I want to.”

  “Oliver’s not really . . .” I wasn’t sure how to explain him, so I just said, “He’s not used to people. He might be difficult.”

  She sucked a spot of grease on her thumb, then looked over at me. “Your brother thinks he’s the only mechanical man of his kind, and maybe I didn’t come back from the dead, but he and I are different from the other clockworks in the same way. It’s damned inconvenient to live without an arm or a leg, but you can manage. Oliver and I . . .” She hesitated, and her fingers traced the shape of her metal panel over her coat. “We’d be dead without machinery. It’s what we’re made of. So maybe if he meets me—if he knows there’s someone else like him—he won’t feel so alone.” She paused, then added, “It would be good for me as well. If that matters.”

  She ducked her head
when she said it so a curtain of her white hair fell between us and I couldn’t see her face. I realized with a sharp smart that I’d been so caught up in myself since we arrived that I had hardly thought of what being here and knowing Oliver existed must mean to her, a girl with gears beneath her skin who’d thought there was no one else in the world who lived and breathed by clockwork. I felt like apologizing, but I wasn’t sure what I’d say when she asked what for. So instead I said, “You can come.”

  By the time we set off again, the first sparks of starlight were beginning to burn between the wispy clouds. “Should we go down by the river?” Clémence asked as we neared the checkpoint. “Might be safer.”

  “I think we’re all right.” The river trail would be slower, and suddenly I felt like sprinting the whole way to the castle. We were so bleeding close, it almost didn’t feel real.

  I held my breath as we passed through the checkpoint. The officers on duty glanced up, but neither stopped us or even seemed interested.

  When we reached the foothills, the path turned steep. I was worried that Clémence, with her damaged lungs, wouldn’t be able to make it, but she didn’t complain or ask for help or a rest. It was hard to see, the darkness made deeper by the thick forest, and I kept glancing over my shoulder every time a shadow shifted. I stopped dead twice when I thought I heard footsteps crunching the snow behind us. Clémence stopped too. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I heard something.”

  We both stood still for a moment, and the silence of the foothills caved in on us. I searched the darkness, but there were too many shadows from the pines and cliffs to make out anything properly.

  Then Clémence said, “Alasdair, there’s nothing there.”

  “I must have imagined it,” I said, though I was certain I hadn’t. We started climbing again, but I couldn’t convince myself it was just the two of us and the night. The lines from the Coleridge poem started darting through my head: Because he knows, a frightful fiend / Doth close behind him tread.

  As we crested the hill and Château de Sang appeared against the black sky, Clémence finally halted, and I stopped as well, relieved to have an excuse to catch my breath.