He raised his hammer and smashed the lock.
From the manor came nothing but the drifting notes of court music played on flutes and the biwa.
Takashi ground the doors open and stepped within, boots crunching on gravel. The dark lay about his shoulders as a heavy mantle. He gripped his great hammer and hefted it. Here was the tower. Where the ants had directed him.
What lay within?
He turned to the wall and searched a moment-a lantern. He lifted it free and struck the lever, the little device shooting sparks. But light followed, a steady glow that lit a cluttered room. Tables and crates lay stacked beneath a winding staircase, but at the very back, behind a pair of torn screens painted with snow, something glinted in the light.
Steel? He moved closer.
Brass.
Takashi crossed the floor and shoved one of the screens aside. It clattered to the stone.
A large brass chest rested beneath a frayed blanket. It had slipped free so that the brass caught the lantern light. He pulled the covering aside. Another lock on the lid, but this, too, he smashed with his hammer.
And then he could not move.
Could not lift it.
Nor even reach forth to lay a hand on the cold, gleaming surface.
He exhaled; he'd been holding his breath, and his throat had tightened. There'd been no such moment for Shima or Kiku. Only the sweeping blue roaring of the ocean, waves tipped in white. Only a terrible absence coming home. He had to open the lid.
A yellow butterfly rested within.
Chou lay upon her side in the brass coffin; a great, dark bruise covered her temple. Her eyes were closed and her skin pale. No smile graced her lips. The stillness was complete; even his shadow seemed to shrink away.
"No."
She had deserved better.
Takashi spun with a cry as he hurled the lamp. It hit the wall with an orange burst. He strode back into the night, hammer held in white knuckles as he bore down on the bright manor.
And he counted syllables as he stalked.
my spirit set adrift -
butterflies dance on
the autumn wind
Aubrey in the World Above
Daniel Lind
Our stagecoach rattled across the rough ground. Then it stopped. Father looked at me through his monocle; his solemn stare had an unearthly quality, making my stomach quiver. The final day had arrived.
Father sat opposite me, holding his top hat and cane. He removed his monocle, and his haunting eyes branded my insides like they always did.
"Your mother is a thief. Don't follow in her footsteps." Father tapped his cane on my shoulder. I flinched.
"We will also discuss new household arrangements," he continued. "You shall wear maid's clothing. It does not befit a young lady to wear a jacket and trousers." He pointed at my legs with his cane.
I couldn't say much. Father always had the last word in every argument, and I didn't want to start one now. But I couldn't resist.
"She didn't steal that hen!"
Father shook his head and climbed out the carriage. He motioned with his cane for me to follow. The drab, thick, fog smothered the street and Town Square. A large crowd of men, women, and children had gathered.
As Father and I reached the centre, I noticed the heap of sand lying there. Hooded monks and, behind them, a row of nuns approached the mound. The procession floated out from the cathedral gates on hover decks. I wanted to rush over there, kick the sand away, and scream at the monks.
I watched in horror as electricity sparkled in a static rhythm underneath the decks, following them in a glimmering tangerine trail. The monks surrounded the heap, chanting in an ancient language. Around one of the monks' neck dangled a locket. He opened it, exposed a polished green bean, and planted it into the mound. A tremor sizzled through the square like butter on a hot pan.
"Leave her alone," I yelled between sobs. I thought I had prepared myself for this day, but I couldn't hold back the tears.
Mother had been clad in a rugged sack. Her hands and feet were tied like a captured deer ready for slaughter. Two monks dragged her through the drizzle of rain and placed her onto the mound.
"What will happen to her?" I asked.
Father scowled. "She'll serve the Giants."
"How will she manage?"
"The matter is out of my hands."
The crowd cheered and applauded the morbid display. Following tradition, a tall man in a black suit sold steaming mince pies to the wealthier clientele. From a barrel strapped on his back he served lemon tea. The smell of meat and lemon made my stomach churn.
"Why can't you do something?" I asked Father.
"Enough questions!" Father raised his cane and an umbrella extended with a swoosh, shielding him from the rain. "It is about to begin."
Tiny cracks appeared around us, blemishes on a rough surface. The fissures popped like balloons through the cobblestone, and raced towards the centre where Mother sat. The audience's cheer grew louder.
Rows of cavities surrounded the centre mound. The ground vibrated. Then a crater opened next to Mother and through the dirt exploded a magnificent stalk.
The plant grew to an enormous size in one breath, reaching for the sky. It looked like it would touch the moon. Gentlemen in the audience stared in awe-one of them dropped his tea cup. People jostled in front of me. I couldn't see what the monks were doing, but I had brought a pair of zoomers and took them out from my satchel.
Mother trembled in front of the stalk. Her eyes were closed, and her long dark hair covered her face like a dirty blanket.
"Mother!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.
The stalk's jagged leaves, branches, and roots, ensnared her. They pulled her inside the mint green plant like a thousand searching tongues. Amber sap dripped onto the ground.
When the stalk had completely swallowed her, silence reigned for a moment. Gentlemen in expensive leather coats were still busy chewing their mince pies, dropping crumbs on their ties. Then the monks and nuns lowered their heads and hummed in unison, as if helping the plant to digest Mother. Through my shaking zoomers I saw her silhouette fading inside the trunk. I screamed for her again, but it was too late-she had been devoured.
###
The following weeks, I slaved as a scullery maid: cooking steaks, serving tea and scones to Father's business associates, cleaning rooms, and wiping floors. My room had turned into an antiquities storage, and I'd been permanently moved to the cellar kitchen, a hellhole of leaking pipes and stringy cobwebs nestling in the ceiling.
My own place was under the kitchen sink. I huddled inside at night, piecing together scrap metal into a mechanical hen I called Pecky, remembering Mother's desperate look before she disappeared. I used Pecky to mend anything broken around the house; more often than not the sink leaked, and I'd wake up drenched in water and the latest nightmare.
Father put a plate with leftover scones outside the sink every evening after his guests had left. My appetite had completely disappeared, and I only frowned when I spotted the scattered crumbs. They always smelled of stale tobacco smoke, and the plate had red wine stains.
Prominent British businessmen were invited tonight. With a deep sigh, I gathered plates and spoons on a silver tray and removed a lemon cake from the delivery box; the guests wanted their dessert. With slow steps and shaking hands I entered the dining room, balancing the full tray. Four gentlemen sat and talked around the table. Thick smoke puffed from their pipes. Silver plates with half-eaten steaks, pate?s, and scone crumbs littered the tablecloth.
Closest to the door sat Father. He gave me a grim look. "Why's it taking so long? Our guests want lemon cake."
I recognised the man sitting next to Father as one of the monks attending Mother's Ascension. A locket with the symbol of the Stalk dangled around his neck. My heart nearly stopped.
The monk sized me up like a broken spare part and said, "My condolences. Your mother had no choice but to serve in the World Above. A child bereft o
f a parent, however, is always tragic."
There had to be a bean inside that locket. If I could somehow-
"Aubrey!" roared Father. "Bring dessert and tea."
This was my chance. I bowed and raced down to the kitchen cellar where Mother stored her recipes and herbs. There had to be something that encouraged ? sleep.
I needed chamomile and lavender. I also needed cactus juice, oils, and a spoonful of sugar to sweeten the concoction. With searching hands I turned the jars inside the wooden cupboards until I found what I needed.
"We are waiting!" rumbled Father's voice upstairs. "Don't make me come down."
The lavender needed to be ground. Where was the mortar?
"Aubrey! Now!"
I moved dirty dishes from one corner to the other, took stock of drawers and cupboards, but to no avail. Father would come any minute and punish me for not having the tea ready.
The screeching of a moving chair came from above. Heavy footsteps. I reached for Pecky and wound her up, letting the hen pluck the lavender as much as possible while I rushed and locked the cellar door.
A moment later, a bang came through. "Why have you locked the door? The guests are waiting, Aubrey, and I am becoming impatient."
"I'm preparing the tea, Father, but I spilled it and need to change clothes."
I returned to see how Pecky was doing; the lavender stalks had been crushed, but it wasn't enough. I mashed the remaining ingredients with my palms and mixed them into a bottle with chamomile, lucuan oil, cactus juice, and a squeeze of lemon. The pungent odour twisted out of the bottle.
I prepared the cups on another tray, together with a porcelain pot for the tea. Father banged on the door again, startling me, and I dropped a spoon on the floor.
Holding the tray in unsteady hands, I unlocked the door. Father adjusted his monocle when he saw me, his frown relaxing. "We will discuss your attitude in the morning," he mumbled. "Bring the tray upstairs."
"Yes, Father."
Inside the dining room again, I poured tea to each gentleman, making sure the monk received a few extra drops. They needed to sleep long enough for me to reach the Town Centre.
Father appeared in the doorway, a long black pipe sticking out of the corner of his mouth. A dark shadow played on his face, moving between his chin and eyes. "My Aubrey needs to learn manners," he sneered. "She behaves too much like her mother."
I lowered my head. "Your tea is ready, Father." The sooner he'd drink with the others, the sooner I could escape.
Within minutes, Father and his guests slouched on the leather sofa, pipes dangling from their slack jaws. I snatched the monk's locket, grabbed my satchel from the cellar, and dashed out onto the street. Horse carriages clattered past me, and strolling gentlemen eyed me with scowl in their eyes: my escape had already caught too much attention. I hurried into somber side streets, and dreary alleys where stinking fish racks lined the crummy walls. A factory whistle blew somewhere.
Town Square loomed in the distance. Someone shouted my name. I spun round and spotted three monks on decks, hovering towards me. One held a sack in their hands. With a wild flutter in my chest and no time to think, I sprinted towards the Square, nearly tripping over on the cobbles.
The sound of my heartbeat thrashed in my ears as I opened the locket and removed the bean. My fingers trembled as I placed it inside the new mound and stepped back. The angry voices and the decks' humming came closer.
Within seconds, the mound sprouted emerald and jade. Leaves and sharp thorns sprawled from the ground. A plant emerged from the cracks and grew in size until it reached the clouds.
"Aubrey, I forbid you to Ascend!" echoed Father's voice.
Thorny branches grabbed and twisted my waist from behind. With one swift motion, the plant drew me inside its belly.
###
I stumbled out of the pod and fell onto soft ground. Sap drooped from my ripped garments in long strands across the cloudy surface. The chilly air stung my bare arms.
A floating plume, shimmering in lilac, approached me in a pirouette and wrote Your name? in the air.
"Aubrey," I answered with a cough, spitting out leaves.
The quill searched for my name on a parchment hanging in the air. I didn't understand what it wanted and must've looked confused; the quill pointed its sharp end at me and scrawled NO SUCH NAME.
"You're a funny one," I said. "I'm not here to serve. I'm off to the Giant's castle." I tapped my satchel twice, and Pecky poked its head out and chirped.
Follow the footsteps wrote Quill and hurtled towards an emerging stalk in the distance. A trail of indented footsteps appeared, leading into the horizon.
?
The Giant's castle was an enormous construction, nothing like I'd ever seen in the World Below. Its front towers were curved patchworks of rustic copper and steel, with spiny wires and massive cogwheels keeping everything together. I examined the castle wall: a hodgepodge of metal bolted together, as if a child had thrown together a toy house in a hurry. Steam billowed from rusty pipes, sticking out from the walls like pins in a cushion. It had several gaps, large enough to squeeze through. A row of pennants waved at the top of each tower.
"Mother's there. Why don't we take a look?" I removed Pecky from my satchel, wound her up, and released her. The hen's olive eyes lit up, and she wobbled through a gap in the wall.
The castle courtyard looked more like a scrapyard. Bundles of metal in all shapes and sizes littered the ground. Bolts and screws, big as boulders, lay on top of the metal heaps. The castle entrance was blocked by an assortment of planks, but one of the towers looked good enough for climbing.
The ascent to the top was more difficult than I'd expected. The metal plates were sharp, cutting into my legs and hands and scraping my cheeks whenever I rested my head on them. I bit back a scream and lost my grip, nearly tumbling down. At the last moment I clung to a pole and pulled myself up. Fear splintered my heart, but I couldn't give up now.
I dragged myself through the open window and collapsed on a wooden floor. A musty smell of old garments hung in the air. A bed that would room twelve grown men stood empty in the corner, along with an unpolished mirror hanging on the wall. The ageing dresser had a thin layer of grease and dust covering its knobs and handles. No sounds came from outside.
"Are we in the right castle?" I asked Pecky inside the satchel.
I searched for a crack in an oversized door and found one I could squeeze through. My expectation to find servants and cleaners bustling around the castle like busy ants was wrong. Pecky chirped and bounced inside the satchel, so I took her out and placed her on the floor. The corridor was ornamented by exotic animal heads hanging on the wall.
The hen wobbled forwards, and I edged behind it. We arrived at the end of the hallway to a set of two enormous doors, one of them ajar.
"Is there someone inside, Pecky?" I whispered.
The spacious throne room had a lush carpet stretching in all directions, and a table made out of polished wood stood in the centre. A Giant hunched on a marble chair with a dozen buttons and metal levers attached to his seat.
The Giant rose from his seat and said, "You're clever, little one. Once, a naughty boy entered me land to steal me grandfather's harp and hen. Are you here to steal too?"
"I'm not a thief," I replied. "Neither is my mother."
"The gentlemen Below delivered a notice to Freithos. They explained your theft to reach me kingdom." Freithos pushed a brass lever next to his throne, releasing multiple rattling cogwheels. A wide net covered me from above.
The web pulled up with me swinging inside it. I was trapped like a wounded animal. "Release Mother," I shouted with a gasp. "Father is a cruel man with hatred nesting in his heart. I'd rather serve here with Mother than slave in the World Below."
Freithos grinned, exposing colossal teeth like stalactites in a cave. "Humans can tell any lies. Me wife trusted the boy who came here long time ago, but me does not."
"Please, Freithos, listen
to me! I've come with a gift - a new hen."
"A hen?" Freithos' bushy eyebrows raised to this forehead.
"Pecky," I said. "She'll serve you well." I opened my satchel and set Pecky loose. It pecked, nibbled, and jabbed the net until it gave in and both of us fell out, landing on the carpet with a thump.
"That's a chicken!" roared the Giant. "I have no use of that."
"She's a mechanical hen that will help you around the castle," I said. "By the looks of it, you might need it." I turned the knob on Pecky's back, and with a whirl it pecked the carpet clean of dust.
The Giant inspected the carpet for a moment and said, "Me shall release you in exchange for the hen and send you to the World Beyond."
Freithos pulled a bronze lever. A ticking clockwork with emblazoned symbols and dials appeared through amber steam on the carpet. In the centre sat an emerald stalk. "Your mother awaits you inside," said Freithos and motioned for me to step inside the clockwork.
As soon as I entered, the world changed into scarlet and azure, glinting into a haze of warm colours. I lost track of time and space as my bearings disappeared into a rainbow. When I finally came to my senses, I sat at the dining table in our house. Mother sat beside me, a silver napkin spread across her knees. "You are right on time for supper," she said with a smile.
"Supper?"
Through the door came a procession of servants, led by Father in a grey beanbag. They carried trays with steaks, vegetables, and exotic fruit. ?
"May I serve chicken soup?" asked Father with low voice. His monocle had disappeared and around his neck dangled the symbol of a Giant.
Story Origins
How many did you guess?
The Clockwork People-
Pinnochio
The original story about a wooden puppet that came to life was created by Italian writer Carlo Collodi. Angela Castillo decided to rewrite the story with clockwork dolls, therefore creating a steampunk twist.
Steampunk Fairy Tales Page 7