Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1)

by Lori Williams

  “You…you don’t mean that.”

  I shook my head in contempt. “I don’t know what I mean anymore.”

  To my surprise, Kitt retracted his knifepoint, pushed me off of him, and took a few steps away.

  “Pocket,” he said gently, “if you don’t help me now, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

  I tasted the night’s air. It was sour as death. “I’ll risk it,” I said between rotten breaths.

  “Would you risk Dolly?”

  I began to grind my teeth at him. “What’s left to risk? You told me that you don’t even know where she is!”

  “That’s right,” Kitt said, “but I know where she’s running to.”

  “Running to?!?” I nearly gasped. “You…you mean she’s awake again?”

  “Of course! Why do you think I came back for the turnkey?”

  I suppressed a pang of jealousy at the thought of another set of hands turning the platinum key into the soft hole that was carved into her. It was a stronger pang than I had expected.

  “So she’s awake,” I said, mostly to myself.

  “Is she ever,” Kitt grumbled.

  I couldn’t help but make a sad smile at the implication of those words.

  “She beat the pulp out of you, didn’t she?”

  I saw Kitt shudder. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “But yes, she was less than pleased. Started screaming and ran away. Twice. The first time she took off, I eventually caught her. The second, well…here we are.”

  I turned my back around and looked at the shadows of all the rusty debris that surrounded me like some strange, new Stonehenge. I pulled a thin rod of bent metal, about the size of the turnkey, and spun it slowly in my hand. So she was at last up, at last out of her dreams. I thought about her face and ran the tip of the metal through the dirt. Out of her dreams.

  But would she be out of mine?

  I glanced at the dark ground and realized that I had, without thinking, scribbled a lumpy heart into the earth. Hardly original tattooing.

  “Fine,” I coarsely stated. “Start explaining. Now.”

  And Kitt, without excuse or apology, confessed the events that had led to this grim, little reunion. So let’s rewind the clocks momentarily back to the Lucidia, and begin on that sleepy morning when Dolly lay peacefully asleep in her chamber.

  The morning I was meant to wake her.

  “I was angry,” Kitt admitted. “Frustrated. Fed up. After watching the Doll get nearly split in half, after seeing all of those bits pour out of her, I lost it.”

  “I know,” I cut in, icily. “If memory serves, I believe you told me to ‘grow a pair.’”

  “That’s right,” Kitt continued. “What you don’t know, Pocket, is that when night came, I was there.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “In the shadows. I was eavesdropping on you two. You know, when you were on the deck.”

  My face flushed at the thought of Kitt’s peering eyes in the dark as I held and embraced the Doll by that stretch of oily water.

  “I see,” was all I said.

  “When I heard what she confessed, I mean, that she was going to, um, fall asleep, you know, I sort of fell into a panic and saw it as an opportunity.”

  “An opportunity?” I echoed, all poison and vinegar and formaldehyde. “To do what? Steal her away, without her consent, and fly her off to God knows where?”

  “I thought I would be protecting her by, I don’t know, taking a stand and moving her away from all of that danger. It’s was a stupid thought, I know.”

  “Stupid?!? Stupid, Kitt?!? No, no! Running off with my bottle and casting it through a window, that was stupid! Breaking into a watch shop in the dead of night, stealing electric carriages, those were acts of stupidity! Taking the Doll off of that ship was something far beyond, something so unspeakable that I don’t think there’s even been a word created for it! I mean, for Christ’s sake, Kitt!”

  “I get it.”

  “How did you even manage to get her away? She was dead weight, mechanical, dead weight, sitting floors above the docking bay!”

  “Trust me,” Kitt breathed. “I know. I had to carry, well, carry and drag her.”

  “Not to mention the fact that the Priest’s shuttle was completely submerged!”

  “Oh, I’m aware of that too. Had to take a nasty little swim to get to it, and even then a lot of sludge leaked into the cabin. Tried my best to clean it out, by the way. But that swim was awful. I pushed and kicked and tried not to gag and eventually inched it up the slope just enough to get the shuttle’s roof hatch above the surface. Oh, and as if getting to the shuttle wasn’t difficult enough, then I had to put Dolly inside and get through an inky-black voyage, literally driving blind—”

  “You...flew that machine…through the oil?!? Underwater?!?”

  “Didn’t really have another choice, Pocket. And the landing ramp had cracked open in the crash, so I could just barely guide us through.”

  “Good God! It’s not a submarine! You could’ve filled quick with seawater or gotten crushed under the pressure!”

  “It was a bit stressful, I know, but—”

  “Not pressure as in stress, you moronic sap!” I shouted. “Pressure as in the weight of an ocean crushing down upon you! You could’ve ended up dead!” A murderous bit of blood popped into the corner of my eye. “The Doll could’ve ended up—”

  “Well, we didn’t!” Kitt said. “We survived just fine! All according to plan!”

  I scoffed. “Plan?!? What plan?!?” He didn’t respond, so I carried on. “No, please! Enlighten me! Apart from stealing a girl and flying beneath the North Sea, what else did this magnificent plan of yours entail?”

  “It’s not important anymore. I abandoned it.”

  “Yeah, you’re good at that.”

  “But I had thought something out, I swear! And it would’ve kept her safe. I just changed my mind, is all. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Oh, come now!” I laughed, cackling mad. Sanity was in short supply that night. “Come now, fox! I’ve had quite enough of your acrobatic tongue. I want to know. What brilliant strategy could you have possibly created?”

  “Not important.”

  “Not important because it never existed! Look around us! The whole bloody world’s crawling around with their big noses, trying to sniff out the Watchmaker’s Doll! The only conceivable way you could’ve kept her from being hunted would be to…”

  I stopped and I stared. I stared hard at Kitt as I finally got the idea. He just hunched his shoulders and kept looking away. The words solidified in my throat, and I became, in that moment, a mute.

  “Go on,” Kitt finally whispered. “Say it.”

  The sounds absolutely slithered from my mouth. “You were going to give her to the King.”

  “Yes,” Kitt said. “I was.”

  My heart fell out of my flesh and tumbled down into some lost hole in Creation that I couldn’t feel, which was unfortunate, because I would’ve loved in that moment to have had strength enough to strike at Kitt again.

  “Why?” I simply asked.

  “I wanted her safe,” he replied. “I figured, better seized than torn to pieces, right?”

  “Better?” I growled. “You thought she’d be better in those hands?!? Kitt, the first time we met those Motorists they tried to take her apart right in the street! You think the men who hired them would do any better?!?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I would’ve risked my own capture too.”

  “Sure. You’re practically a saint.”

  “I was…just tired…of the chase.”

  “We were all tired of it,” I said, “But not all of us were willing to sacrifice Dolly for our own survival. Go to Hell, Sunner.”

  “I changed my mind, didn’t I?” he protested. “Changed my mind and brought her back to life!”

  “And then she ran away. If you ask me, she had good reason.”

  “Look, are you going
to help me or not?” Kitt asked. “I don’t want to waste any more time here arguing!”

  I thought it over. Of course, I wanted more than anything to find the Doll, to clutch her and feel the soft of her skin. But that didn’t mean I trusted Kitt’s story or intentions. For all I knew, he could’ve been trying to feed me one more con.

  “Why do you need me?” I questioned.

  “I figured you’d have better luck coaxing her back than I would. Dolly and I weren’t exactly on friendly terms when she left.”

  “Then why do I need you?”

  “Because I can take you where you’ll need to be. Where you’ll have the best chance of catching her.”

  I put down the bent rod, that makeshift turnkey I was still holding, and saw that it had left a ruddy, bloodlike stain of rust across my palms. Eh, I thought. It made a poor replacement anyhow.

  “Answer one last thing, Kitt,” I said, “to my face.”

  “All right,” he said, moving to match my eyes.

  “Why did you change your mind about turning in the Doll?”

  He crossed his arms. “Because I read it too, Pocket.”

  I blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do. You found it and took it from the bar.”

  “You’re…you’re talking about the diary.”

  “That’s right. When I took the Doll off of the Lucidia she was dressed in a borrowed gown, remember? So after I got her folded up into the shuttle I went back for her clothing. Found those papers tucked into a hidden pocket in the back of her apron. If they’d be sitting an inch higher, they’d have been made into confetti by that hook that pierced her.”

  “So you read them?” I accused.

  “Not at first! In fact, I hardly wanted to touch them once I saw the title on the front page!”

  “Because you realized you couldn’t sell them for anything?”

  “Because they were Dolly’s personal thoughts! I’m not inhuman!”

  “But you did read them!” I spat.

  “So did you!”

  I didn’t have an argument for that.

  “Yes,” Kitt continued, “curiosity eventually got the better of me and I peeked. But I’m glad I did. The way her father fought to hide her from the Crown, it got to me. Sincerely, it did. After that, I couldn’t bring myself to hand her over.”

  The Doll’s father. I tried to imagine how urgent and fearful the old man’s eyes must’ve looked as he buried his daughter away.

  “So you stashed it in that bar?” I then asked. “You’re Foxley?”

  Foxley. I should’ve known.

  “Of course,” Kitt replied. “I was reading it there. Some royal soldiers came in, I panicked, and asked the barman to hold the papers under the first false name I could invent. That’s how I traced you down to the windmill, you know. Came back for the diary, bartender said a tall man with a spoon in his hat asked for it, and a patron said she saw you wander off with a grimacing, hotheaded Magnate.”

  “Gren.”

  “I figured. Witness said it didn’t seem like you were being taken in custody, and Gren’s the only hothead I’ve seen you continually endure. How you ever knew I had hidden those papers there, I can’t imagine.”

  “Long story.”

  “I’ll bet. Anyhow, after that, it was only a matter of figuring out where you were staying. And the night that the Motorists showed up and grabbed you, I followed them.”

  “And you took the key.”

  “Right.”

  “And the toy.”

  “What?”

  “The bubblemaker. You took that too.”

  “Oh, is that what that was? Yeah, I heard you screaming to Gren on the mill sails about how it contained the Doll’s pieces. I figured I’d return those lost parts to her.”

  “It was supposed to be a gift.”

  “Oh. Well, she got it.”

  I took the whole story in and squeezed my eyes. Life was so much simpler when it was boring.

  When I opened my lids, my focus fell on a large pile of scrap beyond where we stood. The tip of something familiar was poking up behind.

  “You’ve got the Priest’s shuttle back there,” I said, “don’t you?”

  He nodded. I began walking toward the mound, brushing Kitt out of the path with my shoulder.

  “What’re you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m taking it,” I responded.

  “Really? Great! We can get on the move then!”

  “No, Kitt,” I clarified. “I’m taking it.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going after her by myself.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You want to stop me?” I said, turning back. “Then run that knife through me.”

  “I will if I have to.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Kitt clutched his fist and furrowed his brows. They slid angrily down beneath his cap and goggles.

  “You need me,” he said at last. “There’s no way you know how to pilot that thing.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said, resuming my walk.

  Kitt jogged after me.

  “Oh, will you?” he called out. “You may get it into the air if you’re lucky, but I’m betting you won’t keep it there very long. You want to risk crashing to your death? Huh? Do you hear me, Pocket?”

  “You’re not coming,” I said, “and that’s final.”

  “So you’re just going to leave me here?!? Stranded?!?”

  “Yep,” I said, reaching the shuttle. “Let’s see how you like it.”

  “No!” Kitt demanded, putting a little fire in his voice. It surprised me, and I slowly looked him over.

  “No?” I asked, challenging him.

  “That’s right!” he responded. “I don’t give a damn about what you say or how you feel about it, you’re not keeping me off of that machine!”

  Without a word I brought out the pistol, and even in the shadows I could see the color drain out of Kitt’s eyes. He hadn’t expected that.

  “Pocket,” Kitt whispered, “where did you get—“

  “You aren’t coming,” I said, my fingers pieces of stone around the gun.

  “I…don’t believe…you would—“

  “Believe it.”

  He shook his head in sad disbelief. “Do you even know how to use that?”

  I steadied my aim. “I’ll figure it out.”

  Kitt dropped his tool, raised his arms, and knelt down in surrender.

  “You’ll regret this,” he said.

  “I know.” Keeping my gun hand trained on him, I began feeling around the shuttle for the entrance.”

  “Pocket…”

  “What?” I spat.

  “Driver enters through the roof, remember?”

  “Oh. Right, sure.” I clawed my way to the top of the machine and began opening the hatch.

  “Guess this is goodbye, huh?” Kitt glumly said as I climbed down into the front compartment of the shuttle.

  “Guess it is,” I muttered, peering over the foreign-looking controls.

  “They’re going to kill her, you know.”

  I sprung my head back up out of the open hatch. Kitt was still in his surrender pose.

  “What was that?” I demanded.

  “If they get to her first, they’ll kill her.”

  “Who will?”

  “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men,” Kitt said. “Who do you think?”

  “But I thought—“

  “Orders to capture? To disassemble? Yeah, those orders changed. Like you said, I was stupid to think any more of those who are at the heart of this. They want her destroyed.”

  “Are you sure? By ‘destroyed,’ are you sure you don’t mean dissected, explored, broken apart, maybe kept in storage?”

  “Destroyed. ‘Scrap completely,’ was language I heard used. ‘Break down, crush, dispose. Burn the synthetics—”

  “Her hair and skin.”

  “—gut out the frame
work—”

  “Break her bones.”

  “—salvage whatever screws and bolts might be deemed useful, and mark the rest as debris.’ That’s the official plan of action. ‘Scrap all except the desired piece.’”

  “Piece?” I asked. “Just one part?”

  “That’s all they want.”

  I rested my weight on the round, metal lip of the open hatchway.

  “You want proof?” Kitt said, reaching into his jacket. “Because I’ve got it.”

  He brought out a neatly folded document and read it aloud to me. He recited every word, every official, emotionless piece of authorized language that insisted upon, in absolutely no uncertain terms, the termination of the Watchmaker’s Doll.

  “Just a piece,” I said, utterly stupefied. “One piece, out of an entire, speaking, thinking, living clockwork girl. That’s all she’s worth to them.”

  “Yeah,” Kitt nodded. “Isn’t that disgusting?”

  “The Motorists,” I remembered. “They said something to me in that windmill, something about wanting what was inside of her. I can’t imagine what she possibly has, but—”

  “But you don’t want to wait for her insides to get pulled out to learn, right?”

  I shook my head solemnly.

  “Yeah,” Kitt said. “Me neither.”

  I told myself that the time for conversation was over, that all I needed to do was to drop myself back down into the machine and get as far away from Kitt Sunner as possible. But I hesitated, and the fox knew it.

  “I gave this to Dolly,” Kitt said, waving the paper at me. “I hated to tell her what those people are planning to do to her, but she had to know.”

  “How’d she take it?”

  “She didn’t really say anything. It was like she…I don’t know…”

  “Already knew?” I guessed.

  “Yeah. And that was that. Last night, as I fell asleep in the shuttle, the Doll was sitting up in the back, looking at stars through the window, I think. When I got up this morning, all that was left was this paper. But she had added to it.”

  “What?”

  Kitt approached the shuttle and held the document up to me. Across the bottom, handwritten in the girl’s familiar, curvy letters, were the following statements:

  I’M GOING HOME TO FATHER.

  IF YOU TRY TO FOLLOW ME, I WILL GO TO THE POLICE.

  GOODBYE FOREVER.