“We are planning a gala, do you understand what that means? I cannot have Halloran making an appearance and ruining my daughter’s chances at attaining their proper place in society with an arranged marriage within the Pennywise household. His title far outranks the one held by my late husband, if that is even an understandable statement to someone the likes of you.”
“Keep up that dandy disposition of yours and you can get your own hands dirty, Ellen,” the man said and tipped his hat before placing his hand on the door latch. “She’ll retreat to Sir Edwards’ estate before making any further decisions. I have already dispatched a group of my men to meet her.” He dropped his hat atop his head and nodded. “Good’ay, miss,” he said in a nearly foul tone to her daughters who remained in the shadows of the room.
“You mean to off her.” Geneve spoke with a tinge of contempt in her voice toward her mother. Though she did not consider Halloran to be a friend or confidant, she did not dislike her. Geneve merely appeared agreeable to all her mother suggested demeanors regarding the treatment of Halloran Frost out of pure dread. She knew her mother was responsible for the death of Halloran’s parents - though proving it was not a reasonable fact she could offer.
“You pity her!” Ellen shouted, causing Janessa and Lora to run into the sitting room and cower alongside the grand grandfather clock.
“Mother, if you continue to collect deaths around you like a murder of crows, you will bring the Bobbies on this household along with Scotland Yard, and while you might not mind spending your days in an institution designed to re-orchestrate the behavior of women, I, for one, have no such desires. Leave the poor girl be and focus on what matters, us.”
Her lips pursed as Ellen glared at Geneve in anger not befitting a woman of society. “Perchance you have a better idea concerning ridding ourselves of her?”
“Should you secure a marriage for us, this dreadful house and its antiquated fixtures belonging to her mother could indeed be returned to Halloran. We would require an estate in the country as part of marriage with an offering of earnest shares in the gas company. That, combined with the gold reserves from both Sir Edwards and Sir Willoughby would be rather attractive to the right ambitious man.”
The servants entered the room to prepare the evening meal for the evening gala as Ellen considered her daughter’s wise words.
“Perchance your assessment bears merit. I shall consider it.”
Geneve backed out of the room, her head lowered to avoid being cuffed. Once out of view from her mother, she leaned against the wall with a deep silented sigh. She needed to warn Halloran but was uncertain how. If she did not attend the party, her mother would grow suspicious regarding her nature toward the young woman. “I must find a way,” she thought. “There must be a way.”
With hands bound and hogtied, there was little the imposter could do to escape his current predicament, though he did his best as Halloran leaned over him.
“What did you do with Sir Edwards?” she asked, pulling the gag free from his mouth.
“I’ll not tell the likes of you,” he said and spat in her face.
Halloran slowly lifted her arm and wiped the spittle away from her face with her sleeve.
“She is far nicer than I will be, just so you are aware,” Jonathan added as he tossed a fresh apple into the air and caught it.
“Feed him ash,” Halloran said as she sat in the chair by the fireplace. “And perhaps a few coals if they slip into the mix.”
The fire had been re-tindered at Jonathan’s hands, he held a few coals that he moved into the ash bucket with the shovel, all the while smiling. “I will begin with cold ash and graduate the longer you refuse to tell us the truth.”
Jonathan pushed the embers aside and lifted a handful of cold ash into his hand, then quickly shoved it into the man’s mouth and held his jaw shut with his strong hands. The man coughed ash out his nose as he attempted to breathe while Halloran looked away.
“You best get on with it, Jonny, I think company is coming,” Halloran said as she parted the curtain to see the aerostat moving toward them.
Jonathan pulled his hand free, allowed the man to spat out the ash, and grabbed him by the throat. “Answers, now,” he said.
Yet the man remained silent. In frustration, Halloran stood as she saw that Carl Gentry had dropped the rope ladder from the aerostat as steam poured at a feverish rate from the behemoth as it approached. She looked at the many books lining the library walls. Her hand traced through the dust laden shelf before her until Halloran’s fingers reached ‘the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe’ which she snatched from the shelf.
“Come on,” she shouted, grabbing Jonathan’s hand and pulled him toward the door. “We must leave now.”
The two ran across the front lawn of the estate toward the rope ladder as it dangled with a precarious disposition from the aerostat. Halloran motioned for Jonathan to board first as she tucked the volume under her right arm and wound her left through the ladder.
Carl placed the aerostat on autopilot and rushed to start the device to reel in the ladder with Halloran’s dangling feet barely clearing the grasp of the men below her.
Once Halloran was on board, Jonathan took a cross tone. “A book, you damned near perished over a damned book?”
“Not just any book, Jonathan Pennywise, THE book, an author-graphed book given to Sir Edwards by my father. If a clue was hidden anywhere by either of them, they would place it in the one spot both men would know I would look but no one else would be privy.”
Halloran sat down in the seat with the book resting in her lap, slowly opened the book and turned the pages until she came to the Raven. “I need a spot of lemon juice,” she directed to the drone at the end of the aisle. The drone approached and placed a glass of tonic with two lemon wedges. Halloran lifted them from the rim, placed a napkin beneath the page, and readied to see if she was indeed correct.
“Carl, I need a piece of paper,” she shouted without realizing her tone. As he rushed down the aisle to her seat, Halloran stood, hugged him, and apologized.
Her attention quickly returned to the task at hand as she slid the lemon wedges across the prose and pressed the paper to it, praying it would reveal the cryptic message her father meant her to find.
“I need to expose it to heat.”
“Will steam work?” Carl queried, his face widened by his devilish grin. He motioned for the drone to come to him and pulled the hose leading from her torso to the back of her copper haired skull. Steam poured forth as he took the paper from Halloran and held it to the steam. Carl watched in awe as red ink formed on the paper.
“Would you take a gander at that, Nimble,” Jonathan said with astonishment. “But what does it say?”
“My father and I wrote letters to each other in code when I was a child, it was a game of sorts, to teach me how to learn other languages and the mechanics of mathematical implications as applicable to engines.”
Both Jonathan and Carl stared at each other in disbelief, unable to comprehend how much Halloran understood about mathematical, difference, and analytical engines. She was far more educated than Carl, who considered himself to be a bit of an expert in his craft.
Halloran held the paper, reading the message her father left before it slipped from her fingers. “Can you take me to Aswan?” she asked, turned toward Carl then smiled. “But first we must take Jonathan home.”
“Have you taken leave of your senses, Frost? I am not going anywhere except but with you.”
“I will not argue with you, Jonathan. Your family will have all of Scotland Yard scouring the city for you if you don’t return for the gala this evening, and your absence would only alert those whom we wish to remain unenlightened.”
“She is right, you know. She has a square head on her shoulders, our gal.” Carl sided with Halloran, which only made Jonathan more angered.
Halloran leaned forward, stroked his sideburn and smiled. “Besides, once this is settled, my answer will
be yes.”
Jonathan thought Halloran was ribbing him and only stroking his ego until he realized she was rather serious.
“You will marry me once you return?”
“I will.”
“But what about all that pomp and circumstance you stand on so proudly?”
“I cannot be a cinderwench to the uglies and that dollymop all my life. It is time I found one of my own.”
“But the estate, your mother’s house, what of that?” Jonathan asked, his heart still unable to believe what Halloran had said.
“If what my father left behind in Egypt is the key as he said, then it will no longer matter - for we will be wealthy beyond our dreams.” She pressed her forehead to his. “But this I must do alone.”
“Not alone, someone has to fly the aerostat, after all, the SS Nimble has not traveled to Egypt before, so she could not possibly know the way.” Carl shot a wink and a nod at Jonathan, providing him with slight relief.
“Take us to London, Nimble, for we say not goodbye but good morrow till you return.”
Chapter six
The Truth of Many Matters at Hand
Halloran sat in the co-pilot’s seat alongside Carl as the SS Nimble slowly descended into the desert outside Aswan. Their destination was a tomb known to only her father and Sir Edwards just outside Qubbet el-Hawa. It was the tomb of a Queen that Egypt had erased from her memory – a powerful woman and Pharaoh in her own right named Tausret.
Once night descended, Halloran and Carl slipped under the guise of darkness, taking a steamhorse loaded with supplies, and two drones to do the digging. As they slipped through a small village, Nimble did what Nimble did best, appropriate items they might need once they reached the hidden location, including two shovels, a satchel of dried figs, and two leather water flasks.
With Halloran seated behind him, Nimble kicked the steamhorse, and they disappeared into the desert. They rode for hours, paused only long enough to refill the steam reservoir of the horse, and to hydrate themselves. In the third hour, the single palm on the horizon came into view, and Halloran knew they had arrived.
Carl set the drones to digging as he set the tent for Halloran. “Get inside,” he said, pointed to the tent and crossed his arms. “Without objections, please. Sandstorms can arise with little warning, and Jonathan taking off my head for anything happening to you is not what I want in my immediate future.”
Halloran, defiant as ever, refused. “I will dig alongside the drones. We must uncover the entrance before daybreak otherwise we can’t deploy the shade to hide us.” She tossed a small, and rather unassuming mechanical ball into the air and caught it. “Something my father used when devising the mechanisms for the gaslights of London. It will provide false scenery, but it must be deployed before daybreak as the shade will only provide us anonymity for as long as the charge holds.”
With her hand extended, Halloran waited for Carl to hand her the shovel, which he did with reluctance. They dug alongside the drones for another hour before hearing the distinctive clink of the shovel head against stone. Halloran looked to the horizon, knowing only an hour of darkness remained at best. She pulled the shade from her pocket, allowed the ball to rest in the center of her palm, and depressed the small button in the center.
The ball lifted from her hand, floated in the air, and the small projection device came forward that recorded the empty desert ahead of them before recreating the same scene ahead of them, effectively hiding their activity.
They rushed to uncover the door. Halloran read the hieroglyphics surrounding the door and discovered the sequence that would grant them entrance. Carl watched as Frost moved her hand from one symbol to another, depressing them in the order needed. A great gush of wind rushed passed them as it was sucked into the crypt as the door slowly crept open.
Carl pressed ahead of Halloran, lighting a match then reached for a nearby torch conveniently left by her father. With the lit torch in hand, they clambered slowly through the sand inside the door until reaching the second seal.
Halloran made quick work of the second puzzle, gaining them access to the tomb of Tausret and one step closer to what her father wanted her to discover.
Carl lit the seven torches lining the wall behind them as Hallaron stood, arms crossed, reading the hieroglyphs covering the queen’s chamber.
“It cannot be possible,” she murmured as Carol stood beside her.
“What?”
“No such device exists,” she said and continued to read silently to herself.
“What device? Frost, would you give me a damn piece of fat to chew on here?”
“The Egyptians, they knew about aether. Tausret discovered it and powered all her kingdom beneath it with a simple device that harnessed it without danger.”
Carl frowned, thinking it just was not possible.
“Do you know what this means?” Frost hugged Carl abruptly and turned quickly toward the many sarcophagi in the room that varied in size and depiction. “The device is hidden here, within this tomb. My father and Sir Edwards left it here for us, for all of us.”
Carl remained silent. Halloran turned to face him and knew he was not enlightened by her words. “Aether is not an expendable resource, Nimble, we can power the entire isle through one device, bringing gaslight to the masses, including the poor. The power the device generates can be used for a multitude of engines at little to no cost to us. Aerostats, nauticals, steamhorses, the possibilities are endless. We sell that technology to the world without the device being revealed or deciphered. The Willoughby Frost Gaslight Company will control it all and use it for the betterment of the world. All of us are about to become very wealthy indeed.”
Jonathan Pennywise grimaced at the mere thought of attending the gala and would do so only at the insistence of his mother. His father knew of his displeasure and offered the only words of wisdom he could.
“Endure for an hour after dinner. That is all I shall ask of you, for your mother, of course.”
“I cannot abide by that woman nor her daughters after what they have done to Halloran. You know just as well as I they have no right to what they have taken let alone the fact they treat Halloran with less courtesy than a strumpet receives from her caller.”
“I understand your position, son, but it is what society dictates.”
“Society and stature matter little to me. Forgive my frankness, father, but I will not spend my life in a loveless marriage for the sake of what others expect. I would and will walk from my inheritance if mother even entertains the notion of me marrying one of those uglies.”
Lord Xavier Pennywise laughed, as he often did, at his son’s impetuous nature that was difficult to contain. He knew Jonathan spoke the truth. “Time heals all, my son, just remember that.”
Jonathan slipped his long black suitcoat over his shoulders and placed the white rose in the boutonnière of his coat. His carriage was waiting.
He descended the semi-circular staircase to his waiting mother, who fussed over his appearance. “I shan’t be long,” he announced while taking his tophat from the waiting servant, and dashed out the door.
Collin Snidewell sat inside the carriage, having slipped inside when the driver was disposed. Gem put his fingers to his lips as Jonathan entered and tapped on the ceiling of the carriage with his cane to alert the driver to leave. As the wheels clacked against the cobblestone road, Jonathan leaned close to Gem.
“Halloran is abroad with Nimble. Any word on those men?”
“We have nearly pieced enough evidence against them to take it to the Yard. They were hired by Ellen, one of them admitted with a little persuasion.” Gem lifted his arm and kissed his bicep then grinned madly. “We’ve got the ole boy locked up until you and Halloran are ready to move forward.”
“She’ll need your protection once Nimble brings her back to London. My father has contacts inside the Yard that will help us, especially with that testimony.”
“It is not just testimony as they might
not believe a common thug taking up words against a society lady the likes of her. We have the signed contract. She hired the Eastside Gang to rid her of Halloran. It’s locked in the safe at the Sherrington Law Firm.”
Jonathan smiled with relief. Will’s father had a deep, soft spot for Halloran and would do whatever was needed to aide. He was a man of principles and what had transpired after the death of Halloran’s parents had not set well with Jacoby Sherrington.
“You have it well covered, my friend. Now I need only survive the night.” Jonathan laughed as the carriage slowed.
“You want me to burst in and create a diversion?” Gem asked with the best of intent.
“No, no sense in you ending up in the pokey when we can set this right. It’s a dinner party. Nothing more.”
As Jonathan exited the carriage to the waiting servants, a sudden feeling of dread washed over him. What lay before him was no average gala by the dress of the servants.
Halloran carefully pried open the many wooden crates, smaller sarcophagi, and other sealed items placed inside the queen’s chamber. They toiled for hours with no results. As Frost sat in the sand drawing circles with her index finger, she relinquished herself to the fact her horrid stepmother had somehow already sent one of her henchmen to retrieve the device.
“If she has it in her possession, it would explain the assassins. What purpose is there in keeping the gaslight girl alive when the world is at your fingertips?”
Carl looked about the chamber and the artifacts uncovered. “Where would be the one place that your father and Sir Edwards would place the device that no one would look? Think Halloran, think carefully.”
“My father and Sir Edwards were so dedicated to the preservation of the tombs they discovered, it leaves me at a loss.” Halloran paused, and studied the images before her with greater focus.
“You see these images that resemble lotus blossoms under glass domes and how they appear to have vines connecting them? I do not believe them to be flowers at all but instead some sort of lighting mechanism similar to gaslight. Perhaps these strange images are meant to project the use of the device, how they mastered aether thousands of years before gaslight was a mere notion. What if this is how they were able to create the great works uncovered here? What if the ancient Egyptians could have worked in shifts despite the lack of daylight with the aether device illuminating their works?”
The Gaslight Girl: A Decisive Devices Novella (Decisive Devices Steampunk Series Book 1) Page 4