Mechanical Hearts (Skeleton Key)

by Nicole Blanchard

  Then everything sped back up and my vision refocused on the scene around me. Ezra was standing in front of me, blocking Fletcher from my line of sight.

  “I’ll find you another whale,” he was saying, and I wondered if he’d ever pleaded, begged, before. The words sounded awkward on his smooth tongue. “Whatever you want.”

  “Shut up, for devil’s sake,” Fletcher said. “Move out of my way.”

  Ezra’s shoulders bunched up and he seemed to double in size. The thought crossed my mind that no one had ever defended me that way before. Except him.

  Then again, no one had every betrayed me before, either.

  “I’m not letting you anywhere near her,” Ezra said. “I won’t let you hurt her.”

  “I’m not going to hurt her, you idiot. Now let me by.”

  “No. You think I’d trust you with this? Move back, old man.”

  I’d never heard the sound of a gun before, aside from what I’d seen in movies, but the sound of the hammer clicking was unmistakable, even in an alternate world, where everything from food to fashion was different.

  Fletcher’s face, though flushed with color, was implacable. “I like you, Ezra, but if you don’t get out of my way, I’m going to make you get out of my way.”

  Ezra didn’t flinch, didn’t move back or move from where he’d planted himself in front of me. He hovered there like a human shield even though the gun was pointed right at him. “You’re welcome to use that on me, if you think that’s enough to stop me,” he said.

  The thought of Ezra lying limp on the ground, his face leeched white of blood, snapped me out of the fog. I crossed the distance between us and tried to move around him, but his arm shot out and blocked me, and I was no match for his strength. I’d only known him as a protector, but it suddenly hit me how devastating an arm that strong could be.

  Fletcher addressed me over Ezra’s shoulder. “What was it you said to him just now? About the moon?”

  “You don’t have to talk to him,” Ezra growled. “Let’s go now. I’ll find somewhere to keep you safe.”

  “Who will keep me safe from you?” I returned. The words hit him like a physical blow and he nearly staggered. I laid a hand on his arm and said around him to Fletcher, “What does it concern you?”

  Fletcher’s hand jerked on the gun and ice coated my stomach. As much as I wanted to maim Ezra, I didn’t want to watch him die.

  “I said you don’t have to talk to him,” Ezra repeated.

  Fletcher took a step forward and Ezra’s whole body vibrated. I could feel the tension in his arm.

  “I don’t have time for games, Castle,” Fletcher spit.

  Despite the restrained violence pulsing just underneath the surface, Ezra’s response was calm. “Then stop playing them, Fletcher.”

  “Just tell me what she said.” I couldn’t be sure, but Fletcher’s voice sounded almost desperate.

  A steady throb had begun to go behind my eyes, and I started to feel the tenuous grasp I had on the hope that I’d go home slip away.

  To Fletcher, I said, “It’s something I’ve always said to my cousin, Phoebe. I was telling Ezra to find a way to tell her that I love her to the moon and back if I can’t find my way home. It’s something my aunt said my parents used to tell me.”

  If I was going to die, I’d do it without lies and with the knowledge that I’d done everything I could to make sure Phoebe knew I loved her.

  “Who are you?” Fletcher demanded. A vein began to throb in his forehead, and his cheeks flushed a ruddy red.

  My brows furrowed, and I struggled to come up with a coherent thought. “Does this have something to do with you brought Ezra here to kill me?” I asked.

  “Kill you?” Fletcher said. “Why would I want to kill you?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Fletcher.” I didn’t even have to dig deep to find the scorn that layered my response. Anger had been bubbling just beneath my skin, waiting to let loose.

  “What is she talking about?” Fletcher asked Ezra.

  It physically hurt to look at the man I’d only kissed a short twenty-four hours before. How could that man, the one who held me so lovingly, who said such sweet things to me, be the same one who brought me to my death? Once a pirate, always a pirate, I guess.

  The expression on Ezra’s face was unreadable, as always, but the grip he had on my arm with his mechanical hand was perfectly clear—I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “The sextant you gave us,” Ezra began.

  “What about it?” Fletcher interrupted.

  Ezra’s hand tightened painfully on my arm. “It pointed to her.”

  I gave a little sarcastic wave. “Yoo-hoo!”

  “There’s no— That’s not—” he stammered.

  “Possible?” came a feminine voice from behind us. A voice I recognized with every fiber of my being.

  “Aunt Millie?” I gasped. But it wasn’t the sight of my aunt that stole my breath and took the strength from my knees, it was the person she yanked along behind her. The “Phoebe,” I whispered was practically inaudible.

  “Millicent?” Fletcher said, only deepening my confusion.

  “You’re supposed to be in school,” was the first thing that came to my mind and slipped past my lips automatically.

  But Phoebe was too afraid to answer and I couldn’t escape the fact that her fear, her tears, were on my shoulders. The two hulking men beside her each took a step closer as if sensing my instinct to snatch her from their grasp.

  I wouldn’t have even glanced away to Aunt Millie if she hadn’t crossed my line of sight and I recognized immediately that she looked completely different from the woman I’d known for the past eighteen years.

  The gray pallor that had affected her for so long was replaced by a healthy creamy complexion. Her customary tattered jeans and t-shirts were replaced with a fine maroon dress that complimented her new coloring. It took a few moments for me to realize the clothes matched the style of the people from Arliss.

  I wasn’t the only one surprised. Fletcher’s face had drained of all color and the arm holding the gun had drooped to aim at the floor instead of Ezra.

  “How long I’ve waited to see that fool look on your face, James Fletcher,” Millie said, practically crooning the words.

  I didn’t have time for her, for her reasons for being there. “I don’t care why you’re here. Whatever you want, you can have it. Just let Phoebe go,” I said. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  Ezra had gone rock solid in front of me and wouldn’t let me push by him to get to her quivering form. I wrenched away from him, strained to get free of his hold, but he wouldn’t relent. I was going to have bruises all over my arm if I made it to the next day.

  I didn’t care what Millie was doing there or what her agenda was. The only thing I cared about was that Phoebe was within reaching distance. I only had to take a few steps forward and she’d be in my arms again.

  Millie signaled two of her goons. “Not so fast,” she said, then added to them, “Take the older girl to the reactor.” To another she said, “Make sure the captain here doesn’t try to do something stupid like try to save her.”

  One of the men crossed the room and put yet another gun to Ezra’s temple, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off of Phoebe. I kept them on her even as the two men ripped my arm from Ezra’s grasp and practically carried me to the huge hissing machine that dominated the room.

  Millie took leisurely steps toward Fletcher, an oily smile pulling at her lips. “Been a long time, dear heart,” she said.

  Fletcher, who was still shocked silent, managed to say, “Not long enough.”

  Her smile fell, but only momentarily. She replaced it with a sneer. “You always were a self-important bastard.”

  “Stop dragging this out, Millicent,” Fletcher replied, impatience coloring his tone. “What are you doing here?”

  She clicked her tongue at him. “I think the more appropriate question is: Where have I been?”


  “Quit the small talk,” Ezra spat. “What do you want with Caroline?”

  Millie fluttered her lashes at him. “Why I’m only going to do the same thing you were.”

  I had more important concerns on my mind than my own fate. “What are you planning to do with Phoebe?” I forced my voice not to quiver, no matter how much it wanted to.

  Phoebe, my sweet girl, was still standing statue straight between the two guards, tears streaming down her face.

  “I have no plans to harm her. Yet,” Millie said. “She’s here to ensure your tacit cooperation. So long as you do exactly what I say, she’ll remain untouched.”

  The implication being that if I disobeyed, Phoebe would pay the price.

  “I won’t let you do this,” Ezra said.

  “You have no choice, my boy,” Millie responded.

  Fletcher managed to regain control of himself. “Where have you been?” he asked. “What did you do?”

  Millie only laughed. “Have you not figured it out already? For someone so smart, you really are quite stupid. When I realized your plan to return our people topside, I could hardly allow that to happen. What if they just went to war again? What if I lost all of the riches and power I’d gained in Arliss? How would we control the masses when they had so much room to hide?”

  “It was a smart decision,” Fletcher insisted. “The right one. Our species isn’t meant to dwell on the ocean floor. It was only ever supposed to be temporary.”

  Millie shook her head. “Well, that just won’t do. We’re going to have to make it much more … permanent.”

  “You can’t do that,” Fletcher said.

  With a glance at me, Millie lifted a brow. “Can’t I?” She kept her gaze on me as the two men bound me in shackles. The clasps on my wrists and ankles were too tight, but I was past pain. “It’s ironic, you know,” she was saying, “that your own daughter would be the only human born with a mechanical heart.”

  Daughter? I thought, but I must have said it out loud because Fletcher turned to look at me too, and his slack-jawed expression was identical to my own.

  “Yes,” Millie said gleefully. “She didn’t die in a boating accident with her mother, like you were told. When I found her still holding onto my dead sister, I took her and used the heart from the last whale you tracked to send her to another plane and leave her where you’d never find her. My hope was that you’d spend so much time looking for her that you’d forget the ridiculous notion about moving us to the surface. The only problem was that I got stuck along with the brat. I had to hide in the Otherworld for nearly twenty years trying to come home. My sister deserved better than a man like you,” she added, her lips pulling down into a frown.

  “So it was you who sent assassins after us,” Ezra said. “At first, I thought they were in The Tycoon’s employ to find the heart as well, but they were yours.”

  “Smart young man,” Millie said. “I’ve had a contingent here searching in my absence for decades. If I’d known my ticket back was with me all along, I would have killed her eons ago.”

  “What I don’t get,” Ezra continued, “is how your assassins knew where to find us. You couldn’t know she was here.”

  “I take back what I said about you being smart,” Millie said. “I suppose you’ll have to settle for being handsome and charming.”

  It was an information overload. Too many revelations. Too many life-altering truths. My heart wanted to grieve, wanted to rage, but all I could do was swallow back the emotions and focus on somehow getting Phoebe and making it out of their clutches alive.

  Ezra opened his mouth, but no words came out when the doors behind Millie opened and revealed Tink.

  “I knew Fletcher would do everything in his power to keep the people of this world safe. And that would mean hunting more and more whales to keep ports like Arliss up and running. All I needed was one whale. One heart powerful enough to bring me home. So my people programmed this unit to sign up with the most able-bodied captain. I knew Fletcher would only hire the best to get the job done. Without Tink here, I would have never made it home.”

  After dropping her final bombshell, Millie whirled to the men guarding me. “Let’s get ready, shall we? With this heart in our possession, we’ll control the fate of Arliss.”

  My energy waning, all I could do was watch as the two men began powering up the machine. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do, but I was sure the time I had left was rapidly coming to an end.

  I lifted my gaze to Phoebe’s and mouthed the words I’d said so many times before. “I love you to the moon and back.”

  She shook her head and didn’t say them back, but that was okay.

  I looked to Ezra. “Take care of her,” I said. “Promise me you’ll find a way to take care of her and I’ll forgive you for bringing me here.”

  In spite of the gun pointed at him, Ezra ate up the floor with his long, confident strides. He fell to his knees beside me and took my face in his hands. “Trust me,” was all he said.

  “Take care of her,” I repeated.

  “This is not the time to be a martyr,” he said. If I had a free hand, I would have cupped his cheek. It took facing death for me to realize he’d only been trying to save his own family.

  How could I fault him for that, when it was all I ever wanted to do, too?

  Millie had the guards take Phoebe from the room, and for that I was grateful. I didn’t want her to see what they were about to do.

  “Don’t worry, darling,” Millie said and patted my cheek with her hand. I jerked away, but she only smiled thinly. “It shouldn’t hurt … all that much.”

  Tears slipped down my cheeks unbidden, and my hands were restrained so I couldn’t wipe the evidence of my fear away. Two guards pulled Ezra away from where he kneeled at my feet and held him along with Fletcher. Two more moved behind me to work on the reactor.

  “You are heartless,” I whispered.

  But my words fell on deaf ears. Millie merely laughed. “Well then, that will make two of us.”

  Then she flipped a switch and energy coursed through my body, paralyzing my face in a silent scream.

  Balance Wheel

  The pain was so great it catapulted me into a state of numbness. It overwhelmed my senses until I was consumed by an endless assault. Whatever was happening to me would destroy me. Of that, I was sure.

  I could still see, but I couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything other than the constant, relentless waves of pain.

  I saw Fletcher screaming at Millie, saw him brandishing the gun in her face. She stood, cool as a winter’s breeze, and merely laughed in his face. I watched as Fletcher bubbled over with rage, lifted the gun, and shot her right in the stomach.

  Her guards were already upon them with raised sticks that were as wide as my wrist. They came down on Fletcher—my father—like a wave of bees on honey.

  I was grateful I couldn’t hear then, but I could still see the pain etched on his face as they hit him. Over and over again until he was limp and bloody on the floor. The only way I knew he was still alive was the shallow inhalations that lifted his chest. Even from a distance away, I could tell that movement was an effort.

  The guards turned their backs on him when he could no longer fight back. Two of them shouldered Millie and carted her from the room.

  Ezra went to Fletcher’s side, and after a few moments, he nodded.

  I’m not sure what happened next because I blacked out. When I came to, my hearing was spotty, and my vision was hazy at best.

  The room was full of people. I recognized some of the faces as men from Ezra’s submarine. Ezra stood at the center of it all presumably shouting directions at everyone.

  Vaguely, I wondered where Phoebe was.

  I wanted to call out to them. Wanted to remind Ezra about his promise to keep him safe, but then I blacked out again.

  I woke up screaming, but that time I could hear the echoes reverberating off of Fletcher’s laboratory walls. Tink was in front
of me.

  He worked on the restraints that held me to the reactor, but he couldn’t get me loose.

  The last thing I saw of Ezra was blurry, and for that, I was sorry. I wanted to apologize for not believing him. I wanted him to hold me again, to stroke my hair. Maybe even kiss me, just one more time.

  As he ran in the direction Millie went, and I still couldn’t quite reconcile that she was the same person who raised me, he shouted, “I’ll come back for you!” but he was already fading into darkness.

  Tink hovered in front of me, and if he had an expression, I would have thought it would be thoughtful. When I extended my hand in his direction, he moved closer and took it in two of his.

  I felt my life draining with each beat of my heart and I didn’t want to be alone.

  “What’s … happening?” I asked him, though I was sure I already knew the answer.

  “The machines that manage Arliss require a great deal of energy. The mechanical hearts are the balance wheel of it all. They maintain the rhythm. When one dies, we require another or everyone in Arliss will perish.”

  I thought of the people again. Ezra’s family. Ezra. My … father. And then Phoebe. There was no telling if we’d ever find another heart to send her home.

  “I can help you,” Tink was saying. “I believe you’ll be able to recover with minimal complications if we do it now.”

  Even though my energy was rapidly waning, I understood what he was saying. If I removed myself from the machines, Arliss, and all of the people I’d come to care for, would die. But if I didn’t, then I would.

  The decision was a surprisingly easy one to make.

  “No,” I said firmly. “Just promise me Phoebe will be safe.”

  Tink studied me for one long moment, then he said, “With you for a sister, I doubt she will be anything but.”

  I tried to reply to his cryptic statement, but found I no longer had the energy to do more than blink.

  The next few minutes faded in and out, but in little snapshots; I saw Tink, still hovering over me, but he wasn’t talking anymore, or if he was, I couldn’t hear it again.