Consequences

by Carla Jablonski

  Slaggingham set about getting the tea. “So, that sly dog Hunter stole your girl, did he?”

  “She ran off to London to find him and I ain’t seen her since,” Daniel replied. “Some might not call that stealing, but I ain’t such a fool.”

  Slaggingham placed the cup of tea and a box of dusty biscuits on the table in front of Daniel. “I could do with a spot of refreshment myself,” he said.

  Daniel’s eyes widened in amazement as Slaggingham pulled off the skin on his hands, revealing machinery underneath. What Daniel had thought were fingers were actually metal contraptions.

  “You—you took off your skin!” Daniel blurted.

  “My gloves, Dan,” Slaggingham corrected. “Bless you, you can’t expect a man to eat while he’s got his gloves on.”

  Slaggingham stuck the tips of his metal fingers into a little box. Daniel heard a crackling, buzzing sound and watched in awe as Slaggingham shuddered, electric current shooting through his body.

  Daniel was speechless. He took a sip of tea, his shaking hands rattling the teacup.

  What does it mean? Daniel wondered. What had he just witnessed? It means, he realized, that Slaggingham ain’t human! How could that have happened? Of course, it did explain how Slaggingham managed to still be alive and kicking after so many years. Has he always been a machine? Daniel frowned, puzzled. He must have been human once, Daniel figured. After all, he’d seen the old gent tuck into a steaming plate of stew while the rest of them looked on, hungry as could be. Slaggingham had needed food back then, like any other bloke. So when—and how—did this change take place?

  Daniel took another sip of tea, hoping to soothe his rattled nerves. The warmth did make him feel a bit better. After all, being machinery seemed to have brought out the best in Slaggingham. He had served up tea and biscuits and was treating Daniel much more kindly than he ever had in the past.

  Slaggingham removed his fingers from the box and slid his false human skin back over his metal extremities. “So then, we’ve both got reasons for wanting this Timothy Hunter dead,” Slaggingham said. “I say we get right to it.”

  “Dead?” Daniel repeated. “I’m not so sure about that…”

  “Ah.” Slaggingham nodded knowingly. “So this girl doesn’t mean that much to you, then.”

  “I never said that!” Daniel protested. “You take that back.”

  Slaggingham grinned. “Settle down, settle down, lad. I meant no disrespect to you or your young lady. I see I was right about that fire inside you.”

  “You just don’t understand, is all,” Daniel grumbled.

  “Let me amend our little misunderstanding,” Slaggingham said. “What can I do to make this up to you? I don’t suppose you carry anything of hers with you, do you?”

  “I’ve got a lock of her hair,” Daniel admitted. He felt a slight blush rise in his cheeks. He didn’t truly want to reveal everything to Slaggingham, but he was curious about where Slaggingham was going with this.

  Slaggingham beamed. “Excellent. Would you like to see the angel again? Your Marya? Give me that lock of her hair and you can.”

  Daniel pulled out the locket that he secretly wore on a chain around his neck. He always took care that it stayed inside his shirt; he didn’t want any of the kids in Free Country to razz him. He had found the locket in Marya’s tent after she had left, and he wore it as he waited for her to return. But she never did. Once he realized he might never see her again, he had taken all sorts of things from her little tent. He found her hairbrush, and had combed the long stray hairs out of it and tied them together with a ribbon. Marya had once told him her mother had kept a little lock of her baby hair as a keepsake, so why shouldn’t he do the same?

  He opened the locket and held out the red strands tied with a blue satin ribbon.

  Slaggingham took it. “Very good, very good.”

  He pushed a button on the wall. A hidden panel slid up with a whoosh, revealing a small machine. This one had some kind of viewing screen on top and a little box with a slot at the bottom. Slaggingham pressed some buttons, and the machine kicked into life with a low hum. The screen went light gray, as if illuminated from inside, waiting for a picture to appear. Slaggingham popped the lock of Marya’s hair into the slot. “Now we’ll get to see what’s what, won’t we?”

  He stood aside, to allow Daniel to step up to the viewing screen. Daniel’s heart thip-thumped again. What was going to happen?

  An image slowly formed on the screen. A girl, smiling, her arms reaching straight out toward him.

  “Marya!” Daniel cried.

  “Flutter my valves, but she is an angel, isn’t she?” Slaggingham said.

  Daniel looked up at Slaggingham, his eyes shining. “Oh, you done it. That’s her, to the life.” Happiness he had never experienced before flooded through him. Finding Reverend Slaggingham had been a stroke of good luck. Thanks to the old gent he’d be able to find Marya again. This was a joyous day!

  “I never seen her wear that coat before,” Daniel commented.

  “She must have bought it since she left…er, since she came here,” Slaggingham said. “This is showing Marya right this very minute.”

  “Cor.” Daniel looked back at the viewing screen. He could tell she was running—her long hair streamed out behind her. “Where is she?” he asked. “What is she doing?”

  Slaggingham pressed another button and a slip of paper popped out of the machine. He glanced at it and said, “She’s somewhere in East London, sure as gears have teeth. As for what she’s doing, let’s have a look.”

  Slaggingham adjusted the machine and the image pulled back, giving them a long view.

  “No,” Daniel gasped.

  There, large as life, was Marya, only now Daniel could see who she was smiling at, who her arms reached for, who she was running toward. It wasn’t Daniel.

  It was Timothy Hunter.

  All her smiles. All her yearning. It was for that magician! And boiling his blood even more was how intently Tim was staring at Marya.

  “The smarmy dog!” Daniel shouted. “He’s going to catch her and kiss her. Slag me if he ain’t.” Daniel whirled around and covered his eyes with his arm. “Make it go away,” he pleaded, “before my heart bursts.” He flung himself across the room and slumped at the table, burying his face in his hands.

  Daniel heard a clicking sound behind him. “It’s gone, lad,” Slaggingham assured him. “You can look up now.”

  “Look up?” Daniel said into the crook of his arm, his voice choked with emotion. “I’ll tell you when I’ll be able to hold my head up again. When that four-eyed traitor is cat’s meat and I have Marya back.”

  “Today can be your day,” Slaggingham promised. “I’ll help you, I shall. I have another invention—a little something I whipped up that may be of use. Come along, lad.”

  Daniel wiped his face on his sleeve. He didn’t want Slaggingham or any of those workers to see that he’d been crying. He stood and was ashamed of how weak his legs felt. He allowed Slaggingham to lead him through the tunnels, oblivious of the twists and turns they were taking. He didn’t care where they went, he just stumbled along, pain filling his every pore.

  There were no workers in the room Slaggingham took Daniel to. Just a large column-like machine with wires and dials and whatnots.

  “Step inside, lad,” Slaggingham instructed.

  Daniel stepped up to the glass capsule. “What is it?”

  “This beauty is an Amalgo-Reductive Persona Potentiator. It made me what I am today. And it can do as much for you. The glory of it is that it takes what’s there inside you and makes it more so.”

  Daniel stared at the invention. “What will it do?” “It will reduce your pain,” Slaggingham explained, “and increase your power to take on the likes of Tim Hunter.”

  Daniel’s eyes widened. “I’m for that!”

  “Climb in, partner,” Slaggingham wheedled. “And be everything you can be.”

  Daniel walked up the
little steps into the capsule. Slaggingham pressed a button, and a door in the capsule whirred open. Daniel stepped inside. The moment he did, the door whirred shut again. It was like standing inside a glass chamber. He peered out, trying to see Slaggingham, but he was all distorted through the glass.

  Slaggingham took his place at the control panel. “You’ve got a lot of spirit, lad. Time to let it show. Let ’er rip.”

  “Let it out, sir? My spirit?” Once again, Slaggingham was making no sense.

  “Yes, lad. Every dirty, poisoned rag of it.”

  Chapter Seven

  TIM CONTINUED STARING AT Molly and Marya. “Okay, so far I’ve figured out this much,” he told the immobile girls. “It has something to do with time. Somehow time moves one way for you and another way for me—and everyone else.”

  He put his hands on his hips. Time is weighed down where they are, keeping them still. They’re sort of stuck in it. Funny, I’ve never thought of time as sticky before.

  Tim held out his hands, moving them closer and closer to Marya. There. He felt it. The air around her gave him some resistance—it tingled. In a sharp gesture, he plunged his fingers into the slower-moving molecules and yanked what felt like a heavy blanket off Marya.

  Marya stumbled forward with such force that she knocked them both over. “Ooof!” Tim grunted.

  “Sorry!” Marya giggled and helped Tim to his feet. He set his glasses back on his nose. “It’s so good to see you,” she exclaimed. “I’ve been meaning to visit you but—”

  “Marya!” Tim needed her to stop talking. She was acting as if this were the most normal reunion in the world. That was part of the problem, though: They weren’t from the same world. Actually, Tim realized, technically we are. All the kids living in Free Country were originally from here, what they call the Bad World.

  Marya took a breath, then began again, words tumbling out of her. “What with exploring and dancing, I just haven’t found the time.”

  “Marya, slow down a minute,” Tim said. “I need to do something about Molly.”

  Marya turned and looked at Molly. “What is wrong with her?”

  Tim snorted. “Her boyfriend is a magician. And not a very smart one, I’m afraid.” He emphasized the b word, testing it out. It didn’t sound so bad. But shouldn’t he have been included in the discussion when that was decided? It seemed like he was the last to know, as usual.

  “Do you think you can catch her?” he asked Marya. “She’s bound to have some serious momentum going, like you did, and I don’t want her to fall over.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Marya got into position next to Molly. “Ready.”

  Tim felt for the sticky sensation in the air that indicated that time had slowed in that spot. He wiggled his fingers and yanked. Molly lunged forward, and Marya grabbed her, as she nearly tipped over.

  “Steady now,” Marya said, helping Molly find her footing.

  Molly turned to stare at Tim, wide-eyed and openmouthed. The moment of truth had arrived.

  “Magic?” she said.

  “Boyfriend?” he countered.

  Molly blushed. For the first time in his life, Tim had one-upped her.

  She gazed down at her clunky boots. “Uh.”

  “Boyfriend,” he repeated. This time, though, it was more of a statement than a question.

  Molly laughed. “Well, you had to find out sooner or later. I was hoping that you would work it out yourself.”

  “Who, me?” Tim’s eyebrows rose. “You know me better than that. I don’t notice that it’s raining until my glasses fog up.”

  “Hm.” Molly took a step closer to him. “Well, I see that you stopped running away, at least.”

  “I guess I have.” He took a step closer to her.

  “Does that mean you…uh….” She trailed off and gazed at her feet again.

  Astounding, Tim thought. Molly O’Reilly—speechless.

  He decided to not prolong her discomfort. “Yeah, I guess it does.” He smiled at her.

  Only now it was Molly who backed up. Had he already done something wrong?

  She studied his face. “Marya wasn’t joking, was she? You are a magician?”

  She didn’t seem afraid, just curious and amazed.

  “Uh, yeah, that’s true,” he replied. This was going a lot better than he had imagined.

  “Wow,” she murmured. Then her eyes widened. “Wow!” she cried.

  “Yeah, it is pretty exciting,” Tim admitted.

  Molly shoved him aside. “It’s beautiful!”

  Tim turned to see what had distracted Molly, since she was no longer paying any attention to him. His mouth dropped open.

  A white unicorn trotted down the alley toward them.

  “What are you doing here?” Tim asked the unicorn. He remembered it from the time he had saved Faerie. Tim and the unicorn had defeated the evil manticore together, and while Tim lay dying the unicorn had kept him company.

  Okay, things are going from weird to weirder. First Marya arrives in my world, now the unicorn? What next? The worlds were all spilling over into each other. Maybe I am some kind of Opener after all.

  Tim blinked behind his glasses. Dark, heavy dust was suddenly swirling along the alley. Marya and Molly began to cough.

  “Where is it all coming from?” Molly asked.

  “What is it?” Tim wondered.

  “Is there a fire nearby?”

  “I think it’s soot,” Marya choked out. “You know, like from chimneys.”

  “There’s no wind,” Tim observed. “Why is it blowing around so much?”

  “It’s not blowing around,” Molly cried. “It’s heading straight toward us.”

  In moments, Tim, Marya, and Molly were engulfed in the black cloud. The soot and smoke swirled all around them, blocking out the buildings, making them unable to see past a few inches in front of them.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Molly coughed. “I can’t see anything!”

  “What about the unicorn?” Marya asked.

  “If he’s as smart as I think he is, he’s already gone,” Tim assured them.

  “No, he’s not!” Molly cried. “Look!”

  The wind had shifted, making a small break in the soot so they could see. The unicorn, overcome by the fumes and choking on the dirt, sank slowly to the ground.

  A harsh voice came out of the black cloud. “I’ll say the freakish horsie is gone, you mongrel. And slag me if you ain’t a going next!”

  Squinting against the nasty air, his eyes tearing, Tim could just make out a figure looming over the fallen unicorn. It was a boy about his age, wearing tattered, old-fashioned clothing and carrying a dingy old broom.

  “Daniel?” Marya gasped. “Is that you?”

  Chapter Eight

  Underneath London

  GWENDOLYN LED THE BLUE gentleman through a tunnel filled with water up to their ankles. He was so tall—easily seven feet by Gwendolyn’s estimation—that she worried he might scrape those ram’s horns he sported on his head against the ceiling in some of the tighter passageways.

  “You’ll like working for Slaggingham, Lovey-horns,” she explained as they slogged through the muck. “He’ll give you room and board. Just think, after you’ve been on the job awhile, you’ll even find calluses on those dainty blue hands.”

  The gentleman never said a word. They rarely did, once their souls had been sucked away. Gwendolyn saw the value in Slaggingham’s system; being soulless certainly kept the workers in line. They never once thought of escape, of fighting back. They never once thought—only did what they were told to do. They followed orders, these captives, and never questioned, not one little bit.

  Sometimes Gwendolyn wondered how Slaggingham had decided which of his merry band to keep and which to discard. She recognized her value—she was bait, pure and simple. But why had Slaggingham dosed her and Brother Salamander with the longevity tonic but not poor old Teddy? Teddy, who had once been known as the Fire King, had become one of
the soulless drones, when once he had been among the same rabble-rousing pack of schemers as the luckier ones, like her.

  But are we the lucky ones? The revolution long promised by the reverend had failed to materialize. And they’d been at this for so long.

  Gwendolyn cast a glance back at her most recent prize. He was quite the catch—a gentleman! A king, no less, if the elegant blue giant were to be believed. He kindled dim memories, from so long ago that they had the unreality of a dream. He brought to mind market days, before things went so horribly wrong for Gwendolyn and her family, before they lost their farm and their home. She thought she could remember those happy days at the town fair, when she was a wee lass, and creatures of all description ventured to the fair. Gwendolyn had always put those images down to childhood fancy. Seeing this Auberon, this Lovey-horns, made her doubt her doubts.

  “It’s not as though you’re the first king to be captured by the likes of me,” Gwendolyn said. “Are you keen on history, dear? It repeats itself, you know. Go back as far as you like. There’s always something to be learned. Take the ancient Romans, for instance. Some of those gents could really tell you what was what. I expect you’ve learned a great deal today, lordship. I hope it hasn’t left you too shaken for one tiny lesson more: how to work as though your royal life depended on it. Which, of course, it does.”

  They had arrived at the middle of a metal catwalk, high above the rising steam of an enormous machine clanging and whirring below them.

  Gwendolyn leaned over the metal railings. “Hey, Brother Salamander,” she called down to a thin, balding man who was staring at a large clock. “Where’s the good reverend got to?”

  The thin man looked up. “Don’t know, sister. He’s forty-nine seconds late for inspection, believe it or not. You might try the commissary. Or his office.”

  “Hear that, Lovey-horns? You’re in luck. You may get a morsel to eat before you’re set to drudge. So step lively now.”

  They passed through several more work areas. Not one of the workers glanced up or noticed the astonishing creature in Gwendolyn’s charge. She took the blue gentleman to the commissary, where the workers on meal shift were taking a break. No sign of Slaggingham.