Mnemo's Memory

by David Versace

  No? Well, that's what Richelle said but whatever.

  So okay, after pizzas, Nina makes everyone lemon, lime and bitters with extra bitters and Kimmy gives each of us a mirror with lines scratched on the rim. We all stand in front of her big mirror, which she says her grandmother said she could have when she died, but her grandmother's in the Hyacinth Park rest home so I don't even know. Anyway, we all angle these hand mirrors until they're reflecting each other and then on the big mirror the scratches line up to make an arrow shape.

  And we have to say this, like, spell or chant, I don't know, three times through, which went:

  Mistress monstrous, can you hear us?

  These reflections call you near us.

  With your heart as dark as pitch

  You must grant us just one wish

  We are fierce so you should fear us

  Mistress monstrous, can you hear us?

  Come to us, you mirror witch!

  D'you notice how much it sounds like "Martian Rover" by Ophelia Vernon? Yeah, we sang it the last couple of times. Have you heard Priya sing? She's really good. Like she could audition for The Voice. Like I don't think they'd let her get through cause she's just a kid, but she's really good.

  The mirror witch looks like Charlize Theron but old. That's what I thought anyway. Priya says she looks like her viola teacher's girlfriend, except that she was a redhead. Kimmy says the witch looks like her grandmother looks in old photos from when she was at university in Prague. Richelle said the witch didn't look like anything but she heard a voice like a big cat roaring except that she understood it like real words.

  Kimmy brings out this offering bowl and Richelle says "Do we have to cut ourselves and drip blood in?" and then we all go quiet because, well you know, maybe? But Kimmy fills the bowl up with jelly beans from the party stash. They don't have lollies where the witch is from, hey?

  The witch drags us all through the mirror into her world and Nina almost vomits because she overdid it on the bitters. We fall through this void of shimmering dust and weeping stars and really it's a bit too high-gloss for me. But then we end up on the deck of this old sailing ship in the middle of space.

  I don't know how we could breathe. Mirror stuff, who cares? The mirror witch took off before we could ask. I saw she'd swiped a bottle from Kimmy's Dad's liquor cabinet so maybe they don't have booze in the mirror place either?

  So the ship is haunted by this ghost of the old captain, who's this cranky old nanna called Misery Janks. She staggers around the deck complaining about how the Wormwood Miranda hasn't had a crew for four hundred years. Priya's just soft and she gets all weepy and says we'll be her crew and bring her back to her home port so she can lay to rest and whatever? None of us know sweet FA about sailing or anything except for Richelle's uncle takes her surf kayaking down the coast sometimes, but we go along with it. I hear old time sailors were drunk all the time so how hard could it be?

  But Nanna-Captain Janks doesn't want her bones buried in her old garden or whatever, so she says let's go raiding and pillaging. I suppose that's pretty antisocial now I think about it but we were all sugared up so we said yes.

  We set course for the nearest star, where we find this world full of chanting lizards, crystal mountains and warring tribes of mantis-people. And for ten and a bit years we sack their treasures and scatter their bones, looting and plundering everything that's not nailed down. We take whatever and whoever we please and drive Nanna-Captain Janks' enemies back to their nests out behind the cold stars. We grow to womanhood. Hard, merry cutthroats, every damn one of us. Proud, straight-backed killers, thirsty for mantis-blood. It tastes a bit like red cordial.

  And one day the Wormwood Miranda, riding low and slow with the looted riches of another war-queen who thought she could outsmart us, is coming back to her home port, which is this awesome floating palace orbiting a planet swirling with purple and orange lightning-clouds, when the mirror witch returns. She's not too steady on her feet, so we think she must have just finished knocking off the bottle of scotch by herself. Then she says it's time to go home.

  We all say goodbye to Nanna-Captain Janks, who isn't happy to see us go but has to admit we were the best crew she's ever had. She even has a sneaky cry when she thinks we can't see her. Then the mirror witch brings us back through to Kimmy's place just as the sun comes up.

  Back to being the children we've almost forgotten we ever were, in a dull and lifeless world we no longer recognise. The days here taste of sawdust and sunburn, and life is a weary trudge towards an inglorious grave. I ache to return to the stars.

  Anyway, that's why I didn't do my homework last weekend.

  Do you know what trigonometry is?

  Can I copy your answers?

  This story of a kind of Neverland for teenage girls kicked around in my mind for a couple of years, pretending it was an idea for a weird novel. For some reason I believed it, right up until the moment I realised that I'd never had a single other idea that built on the central image of pirate teenagers on a worn-out ghost ship crossing swords with bug-people.

  As soon as this book comes out, I'll probably come up with the plot for a trilogy of novels about Kimiko and her friends tearing up the mirror place.

  Mnemo's Memory

  With a sweep of sealskin-clad fingers, Captain Hollioak brushed icicles from his brow. They drifted down to the snowdrift gathering about his deck boots. Some swirled overboard to join the creaking Antarctic pack ice far below. Overhead the canvas thrummed with the cutting wind, ribs rippling across its surface and shed flurries of ice particles.

  Two figures emerged from the murk. Clanking footfalls marked their unsteady progress.

  "Lady Gracemere, I must once again protest at your footwear. Your every excursion ravages the decking. Mr Thackeray is beside himself."

  He withheld the carpenter's precise words.

  Lady Elizabeth Gracemere's pale features were hidden behind both tinted eyepieces and a sturdy woollen scarf, which concealed any possible remorse. She hitched the hem of her skirt, revealing rigid boots bound by metal bands to a contraption of gleaming rivets and shark tooth-shaped spurs. Her companion's feet, or rather the extremities of its unbending legs, were similarly attired. "And I assure you, Captain Hollioak, that I have no intention of being swept into the aether to suffer the indignity of a long and fatal fall."

  Hollioak bristled. "Your safety is assured, my lady. I have never lost a passenger overboard and by God's leave I never shall. Even this clanking factotum of yours need fear no harm."

  His reflection in the automaton's amethyst faceplate was uneasy and distorted. The monochrome paintwork on its brass body bore a superficial resemblance to butler's attire, but its unnatural stillness prevented any sense of humanity. Next to Lady Gracemere, it was a cold, haunted thing. Never more so than when it spoke in a hollow echo of that warm, familiar baritone. "No fear, Hollioak. Complete faith, I assure you."

  "I beg you to recall, madam, my request that it not speak in my presence." Hollioak hoped her Ladyship would interpret his stiff bearing as formal deference. He could not bear to hear his dead friend's voice emerge from the machine.

  The steam butler was testament to her mechanical genius. But its uncanny assumption of Lord John Gracemere's verbal habits and, worse, its unsettling familiarity with his widow, hinted at a darker spiritual malaise on her part. The hissing steamwork facsimile of her late husband, replicating his voice and so many of his mannerisms as its limited articulation allowed, was as disturbing as it was grotesque.

  Lady Gracemere touched a gloved hand to the automaton's shoulder. "I recall your request, Captain. I presumed the petition was on behalf of your crew. I little imagined you dismayed by the march of science."

  "By no means, Madam. It is a remarkable work of engineering. All the more remarkable given that you -"

  "Are a woman, Captain?" Her arch reply was more chilling than the bitterest crosswinds.

  "Are a widow in mourning, my Lady." Holli
oak grimaced, certain he had given offense.

  Lady Gracemere peered past him into the gloom ahead. "How long until we reach our destination, Captain?"

  "We will be within sight of Mount Erebus in no more than three hours, by my reckoning."

  Lady Gracemere nodded, evidently confident in his aeronautical skill, if nothing else. Hollioak was by no means satisfied to let the matter rest, however. Risking what good standing remained to his credit, he said, "Once again I urge you to take some Time to contemplate terminating our present venture. You could be certain of my wholehearted support."

  "I hope I am not wrong to be certain of your support in any event, Captain Hollioak. Please don't suppose me ignorant of your discomfort. It was uncivil of me to discharge your obligation to his Lordship on such grim business. But I mean to avenge my husband. To do so I must hold you to your oath. Do I have cause for fear on that score?"

  Hollioak deflated in the face of her crystalline determination. "Indeed not, Madam. The Bishop of Sarum is at your disposal."

  "Then I pray you will make no further attempts to dissuade me. Please summon me when we approach Doctor Winter's stronghold."

  #

  Elizabeth could not sleep. Captain Hollioak's protest had stirred unsettling memories. It was over a year since the telegram informing her to arrange a funeral with no casket.

  Her work on Mnemo had already begun before the fall of the Marquess of Salisbury. While society gossiped about airships in flames and the eligibility of widows, she withdrew to her laboratory. From that moment on she wore workshop coveralls more often than her mourning wardrobe.

  Making the most of a dull ring of gas candle-tubes, she tinkered with the bundles of steel cables articulating Mnemo's four-fingered hands. The work demanded concentration but her thoughts kept drifting to the impossible position in which she had placed Captain Hollioak. She pressure him to disregard his orders and ferry her to certain doom. Smoked goggles had not hidden the anguish of uncertainty in his dark eyes. She sympathised. A man like Edward Hollioak, a commander of fighting men, could not afford the appearance of indecision.

  She shook her head. "I require a distraction. Mnemo, replay Recording 15."

  A moment of crackling hissed from Mnemo's speaking grill.

  Then John's voice, one of the few precious mementos remaining of the man she had loved, filled the small cabin. "...His Majesty's interests in the Southern Hemisphere, Elizabeth. The conflict between the Tsar and the Emperor will spill out of control at any moment. The world cannot remain at peace for much longer."

  Though she had never shared his interest in political affairs, she smiled to recall his fire. He had burned with passion that day, stalking about her lab while she calibrated her recording equipment for the first time. It did not last. Obsessed with preventing the horrors of revolution from gaining a foothold in England, his simple devotion to King and Country took a dark turn. Within a few months John was embroiled in the affairs of Doctor Winter.

  "Madam, has the recording made you sad again?"

  She swallowed and brushed her eyes dry. "How should I feel, Mnemo? The recording is all I have left of John before the madness of this Winter business."

  "You know it's not that simple," replied the automaton. "Why do you keep the truth from Hollioak?"

  The words sparked an unexpected ache in Elizabeth's chest. For an aching moment, she could not say whether it was inspired by her husband's voice or the Captain's. She crushed the sensation, reshaping it into renewed resolve. "The truth would distract Captain Hollioak from his duty," she said. "I cannot allow it. Besides, you are incorrect."

  "In what way?"

  "There is nothing simpler than revenge."

  #

  Elizabeth's small cabin, piled high with trunks of equipment, a modest wardrobe and a variety of sensitive instruments, had no windows. A subtle shift in the drone of the dozen Haight-Trommler engines suggested the airship was slowing. She confirmed it with a glance at the flicking hands of her pocket seismograph before she slipped it into a coat pocket. She fitted the last harness in place. Compact belts hung with tools. Pouches bulged with replacement parts. She slotted weapons into oiled sheathes and slick holsters. She slipped on the heavy arctic coat John once wore on a Greenland expedition. Her miniature machine shop was concealed beneath fur trimmed leather and brass sealing-rings.

  Were The Bishop of Sarum not approaching Mount Erebus under cover of dense snow clouds, she imagined the view from the foredeck would be magnificent. Elizabeth promised herself to return in some future summer to take in the sight of its glowing crater, its billowing steam vents and its stalagmite-shaped ice spires.

  It was not wicked arrogance to anticipate the future, was it? Just harmless self-deception.

  "What do you think, Mnemo?"

  "Your preparations are exemplary, Madam. His Lordship couldn't have done better."

  "We will know soon enough."

  "I must inform you that there are two men listening at your door."

  At this declaration, a blistering sailor's oath preceded two pistol-wielding brutes through the cabin door. Elizabeth permitted herself a faint smile before turning to receive them with an expression of rankled perplexion. "Gentlemen, whatever can be the meaning of this intrusion?"

  The sailors were Hibb and Adkins, Yorkshiremen of hulking stature and surly disposition. More than capable of overpowering a slight woman in heavy dress should she give them cause. They might even best Mnemo. Fortunately there was no need to test either proposition.

  "You are to accompany us, Lady Gracemere."

  "Captain's orders," added the second, failing to conceal a knowing smirk beneath a mat of iced beard.

  "Delightful. Lead on. Do make room for my assistant there, if you please."

  Hibb stood his ground in the doorway. "Just you, your Ladyship. Your engine-man there ain't summoned."

  "Of course, how silly of me." Elizabeth raised her hands before Mnemo's face lenses and twisted her wrists like a Turkish dancer. "Stay here Mnemo."

  "Very good, Madam." The echo of John's amused twinkle almost made Elizabeth smile again.

  They led her through cargo holds and cramped corridors made almost impassable by her many layers. Elizabeth feigned ignorance of their destination.

  She had committed the ship's layout to memory. The brig was situated a full deck below the Captain's cabin and officer's wardroom. She could be led there unseen by any more than a handful of idle airmen.

  She felt a pang of regret on Captain Hollioak's behalf. She predicted Doctor Winter's advanced knowledge of her expedition. She had accounted for treachery in her own plans; she had not shared her suspicions with the Captain. Captain Hollioak would be aghast to learn Winter's coin had bought the loyalty of some among his crew. Elizabeth took no pride in concealing her intelligence from him.

  The crewmen, ignorant of her information, kept up their commendable performance of escorting her to Hollioak. She pretended not to see their worried glances and shifty responses to unexpected sounds. To their evident relief – and Elizabeth's – they reached their destination uninterrupted.

  "Captain's waiting inside," said Adkins. He took firm command of Elizabeth's elbow and steered her through the door into the gloom beyond. For form's sake she exclaimed "Captain Hollioak? I cannot see you." The two airmen laughed. Adkins ended their brief acquaintance with an indecent shove to her behind. She yelped in outrage as the door slammed. The point of a carpenter's spike punched through the door frame.

  When the airmen's rough laughter faded, Elizabeth tested the door with a shoulder. It was stuck fast. She was sealed in.

  She smiled and set to work.

  #

  Hollioak announced himself with an emphatic cough at Lady Gracemere's cabin door. "We've crossed the Ross Island coast, Madam. We must assume ourselves within range of Winter's artillery."

  A bell was calling the hands to their stations. Under ordinary circumstances Hollioak would be in the helmcastle with Comma
nder Dempsey preparing for battle. These circumstances were anything but. It rankled that Lady Gracemere had yet to divulge the final details of her plan.

  "Madam, the hour is upon us."

  She was not present. The spacious cabin was stacked with engineering paraphernalia. There was nowhere she could be concealed. The factotum stood in her place. Curling his lip, Hollioak asked, "Where is Lady Gracemere?"

  Mnemo hissed and emitted a barrage of quiet pops like distant cannon fire. "Edward Hollioak," it said. "Unaccompanied. Message two."

  Hollioak scowled. "I beg your pardon! I asked –"

  "Lady Elizabeth has been taken prisoner by crewmen in the service of Doctor Winter." Mnemo's interruption stilled Hollioak's indignation. Lady Gracemere kidnapped by mutineers? Hot blood swelled his chest like an inflating balloon.

  "Damn you, why didn't you say so at once?" The automaton's complacence was all the more infuriating for sounding like Lord Gracemere. In life the man would have leaped straight into action. "Why didn't you do anything?"

  Unruffled, Mnemo said, "Lady Elizabeth's instructions were precise: to wait twenty minutes or until your arrival. Eighteen minutes and twelve seconds elapsed."

  "Her life may be in danger!"

  "Lady Elizabeth expects her detention is a precursor to an attempt to take control of your vessel, Captain, before you can turn your guns on Doctor Winter's facility."

  "What? Who are these mutineers?"

  "My information is incomplete. Crewmen Adkins and Hibbs are certain. Their accomplices may be few or many. You must trust your own instincts."

  Mnemo's words hit him like the revelations of a ghost. How many times had John Gracemere told him just that? "Am I supposed to trust you?" he said. "A memory made of brass and mirrors?"

  "No, Hollioak," replied Mnemo. "Trust Elizabeth Gracemere. Now please stand aside." He barely had time to comply before the automaton lurched past him, its faceplate flashing.