The Steampunk Trilogy

by Paul Di Filippo

  Satisfied with the reprimand, Davis resumed his speech.

  “Ever since my discovery of this realm, it has been my one desire to visit it bodily, well before my death. I searched fruitlessly for many years for an entrance to Summerland. Just when I was on the point of abandoning my search, I met the illustrious Madame Selavy.”

  The medium spoke. “Ah, mon cher, it was I who met you!”

  “As you wish, Madame. In any case, Madame Selavy represented a great advance over all other mediums I had encountered.

  “Madame, you see, is able to act as a physical bridge between Summerland and Earth, by means of a curious new material she exudes.

  “At this point, I believe I will let Professor Crookes take over. Professor?”

  Crookes and Davis exchanged places. With Oxbridge schoolroom crispness, Crookes began to lecture.

  “Madame Selavy is a portal between our world and Summerland. Extensive tests and trials have proven that she possesses the unique ability to serve as a channel for the very stuff of which the spirits and their world appears to be made. I have dubbed this new form of matter ‘ideoplasm.’

  “Ideoplasm seems to be a protean substance—partly organic, partly inorganic—heretofore unknown to science. Issuing from the body of our medium, it is susceptible to her thought commands, taking on whatever shape she wills. A hand, a limb, or an entire spirit can be made manifest. And these ideoplastic creations are quite tangible, as I can personally testify.

  “Still, however tantalizing this new phenomenon first appeared to me, I could not see how it might offer us direct entrance into Summerland. The ideoplasm issued forth and returned through the channel of our medium, without permitting any mortal object to accompany it.

  “This is where science stepped in.”

  Crookes now lifted the glassblower’s product from the lectern and held it up for inspection.

  “This is my latest invention, which I modestly call a ‘Crookes tube.’ Through its evacuated interior an electric current can be made to flow, from the cathode at one end to the anode at the other.

  “When this tube is filled with ideoplasm—captured and detached from Madame Selavy—and activated, a most startling thing happens.

  “The tube and its contents, as well as any objects within a certain radius, disappear! It is as if, under the electric shock, the ideoplasm is forcibly ejected from our plane, dragging with it a certain amount of earthly detritus.

  “The spirits have told us that they have seen the tubes and their wrack rematerialize in Summerland.”

  Crookes smiled smugly. “I will now restore the platform to Mister Davis.”

  When Davis stood again before them, he said, “Our world is in point for point contiguity with Summerland. Here in Amherst, for instance, your familiar grassy Common is, on the other side, coexistent with Summerland’s Bay of Seven Souls.

  “It is from here that we shall set sail for the afterlife!

  “Even as we sit here, a wagon is on its way from the McKay Shipyards in East Boston, bearing a specially designed schooner. After our vessel arrives, we will fit it out with a circuit of ideoplastic Crookes tubes, which we have been filling slowly day by day. Thus outfitted, we will breach the barrier between the worlds, in a voyage more daring than Jason’s!”

  Out of respect for Austin’s dementia, Emily had sat silently throughout this farrago of science and mysticism, despite her rising indignation. Now, however, she could no long restrain herself.

  “And how, pray tell, does Madame ‘exude’ this celestial quince jelly?”

  Davis assumed a flustered look and began to polish his lenses once more. Walt gazed toward the ceiling and young Sutton began insouciantly to whistle. Crookes crossed his legs and folded his arms across his chest. For half a minute, the room was as silent as a meeting of the Know-Nothings.

  Then the medium herself spoke.

  “It is from the mamelles, dear sister of Austin. The bounteous tits.”

  To illustrate, Madame Selavy cupped her large breasts. “It is a kind of spiritual milk, which, with help, I can squeeze out, plip-plop.”

  Emily was speechless. The most obscene pictures filled her churning mind. The Brain has Corridors surpassing those of the most haunted Abbey—

  Walt coughed, shattering her inner absorption.

  “Mad filaments and ungovernable shoots,” said the poet, “play out of the female form, and our response is likewise ungovernable.”

  “Ungovernable,” said Emily, “my foot!”

  6

  “BY WHAT MYSTIC MOORING SHE IS HELD TODAY”

  LAVINIA DICKINSON TIED her bonnet beneath her chin, picked up a large lidded market basket, and, wearing a look of impatience, turned to her dawdling sister.

  “Are you coming, or not, Miss White Moth?”

  The use of her costume-inspired nickname roused Emily from her introspection. She had been considering one of the first poems she had ever written, the verse that began: One Sister have I in our house, and one, a hedge away.

  How treacherous the one linked by marriage had revealed herself to be. A regular Cleopatra! If only Austin could have married sweet Mary Warner, how much better things might have been. . . .

  Emily thanked the Lord for the stolid common sense of her blood sister. She could not imagine life without her beloved Vinnie—sour, cynical, acquisitive as she was. How she needed her—especially now, in the light of the unbelievable immorality which seemed to have taken hold at The Evergreens.

  Three days had passed since the revelation about Madame Selavy’s ideoplastic poitrines had caused Emily to beat a righteous retreat to The Homestead. (Curiously, she had not felt compelled to hie herself to the safety of her bed, but had instead frittered the time away in domestic pursuits; enough rye bread had been baked to feed all the gawping spectators at John Brown’s hanging! If this represented an increased toughness of heart on her part, she knew not what to attribute it to, nor whether she liked it. . . .)

  In that interval, no one from The Evergreens had approached her to apologize or cajole. Save once, when Walt had knocked the very next day at the front door and been received by Vinnie.

  “Give him this,” had been Emily’s response to his arrival, handing her sister a folded poem:

  A Burdock—clawed my Gown—

  Not Burdock’s—blame—

  But mine—

  Who went too near

  The Burdock’s Den!

  After reading it, Walt had departed wordlessly, and not returned.

  Emily had felt a little surprised and saddened that the ocean-deep Bard had not pressed his cause harder. The fires of worship which he had aroused in her—strictly those of one Poet and Free Thinker for another, she reminded herself; had he not admitted that his heart was forever betrothed to that nameless New Orleans hussy whose tintype he carried?—still burned, however banked their coals.

  But for whatever reason, Walt had not pled or argued, and Emily had sought to put him and the whole insane menagerie at The Evergreens out of her thoughts.

  Yet just this morning had come the incredible news from town which had reawakened all her curiosity about the mad expedition Austin and the others were planning, and which now threatened actually to make her pay a visit to the Amherst she had turned her back on years ago.

  “Yes, Vinnie,” said Emily, rising from her seat and taking down her Merino Shawl from a peg and donning it. “I shall accompany you to town. That is, I think I can do so, if I may have the comfort of your sturdy arm.”

  Vinnie seemed touched, and her gruff manner softened. “Why, that’s the least you may ask of me, Em. I know this isn’t easy for you, but I think it’ll do you good.”

  “You are my Nurse and Confessor, Vinnie, so I shall place my faith in your words.”

  Arm in arm, the sisters departed by the front door of The Homestead,
descended the sloping brick walk, crossed the perimeter of low hedges, through the wooden gate, and turned east, down Main Street’s dusty unpaved sidewalk.

  For a moment, Emily was reminded of the joyous sugaring expeditions her family and friends had once embarked on, before they had all grown so old and hard. Why couldn’t one remain young in spirit forever—?

  It was a short stroll into town—Amherst was not a big place—but Emily saw something to amaze her at every step. The simple village life—the children at play, the housewives at their chores, the carriages and horses, dogs and peddlers—It was all as miraculous to her as Heaven Itself.

  With a pang, she heard again Walt’s admonition that she was refining herself out of existence by cutting the ties that bound her to a common, shared life. . . .

  Passing North Pleasant Street, both sisters cast a nostalgic glance at the house where they had spent a portion of their childhood. From its windows, Emily had watched numerous funeral processions wind their way to the nearby cemetery—her first conscious fascination with Death. Out of those sad and mean years when The Squire had been forced temporarily to vacate The Homestead, due to financial setbacks, she yet retained a few happy memories.

  Emily wondered how her life might have been different had the family stayed closer to town, been less prosperous, not fortified itself in its castle, The Homestead. Would she have married, even moved away? It seemed so impossible now. . . .

  Ahead loomed the Common. Emily noted that most of the foot-traffic abroad this morn was tending toward that open parcel of land, and surmised that the rumors that had drawn her out were indeed true.

  As Vinnie had predicted, renewing her acquaintance with the village was indeed proving a tonic. The gentle May breezes were having their old effect. Emily could not meet the Spring unmoved. She felt the old desire, a Hurry with a lingering, mixed—

  “Walk faster, Vinnie!”

  “Not so speedily, Moth! Ladies do not run in public.”

  “I’m not a lady, I’m a Queen! And Queens may do as they please!”

  Pulling her sister after her, Emily hastened toward the gathering crowd.

  The Common was a rectangular expanse two or three acres in extent, fringed and spotted with May-bright trees. Several of Amherst’s six churches fronted on the path-laced mall, as did those slightly disreputable yellow-painted structures known as Fraternity Row, among others. The hilly countryside surrounding Amherst held the public seat in its cupped hands, a natural amphitheater, the mountains standing in Haze, the Valleys stopped below.

  And now, as Emily could plainly see, the Common sported a new feature.

  In the middle of the lawn, secured in its wheeled cradle by thick hawsers, seventy-five miles or more from the nearest harbor, stood a twin-masted schooner, looking as incongruous as trousers on a Sandwich Islander.

  Surrounded by noisy spectators, the schooner resembled a misguided barque stranded on a shoal of flesh.

  As Emily drew nearer, she espied the trim figure of Professor William Crookes standing on the deck. He was bent over a surveyor’s instrument. Following the direction of its barrel, Emily saw Andrew Jackson Davis some yards away, holding a plumb bob.

  Eight sweating Percherons in harness—no doubt the team that had transported the craft over the roads from East Boston—were still attached to the ship’s undercarriage. At their head, holding a whip, stood Henry Sutton and his helper, Austin Dickinson.

  Neither Walt nor Madame Selavy was anywhere to be seen. Emily suppressed an evil thought.

  “We’ve got to move it fifteen yards further on, Hen!” called out the savant now, above the exclamations and japes of the crowd.

  Young Sutton cracked his whip in the air and urged the team on, aided by Austin.

  “Hee-yaw! Put yer backs into it, boys!”

  Ponderously, the craft began to roll across the turf. At the proper moment, Crookes signaled with a chopping motion to disengage the team, and Sutton did so swiftly by knocking out a wooden pin in the linkage. The ship’s inertia carried it on for a short distance before it ground to a halt.

  “Perfect!” cried Crookes. “A tribute to Newton’s Laws!” Abandoning his instrument, Crookes turned to address the crowd in his regal English manner.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen of Amherst, you are privileged to witness today the dawn of a new era, an era in which regular travel between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead shall inaugurate a Golden Age of scientific theology. No longer will life be shadowed by death. Instead, a flourishing commerce between the two kingdoms will permit one and all to live without anxiety or fear, in the knowledge that our souls survive their earthly husks.”

  From the crowd a rough male voice yelled a flippant rejoinder. “Maybe you and your spooks can solve the Burdell murder!”

  The reference to the scandal which had filled the New York papers a couple of years ago set off a gale of laughter. Crookes weathered it good-naturedly. When it had died out, he simply concluded, “You shall see more, and shortly. This much I promise. Then you may judge for yourselves.”

  With that, Crookes turned and clambered down a rope ladder, joining his three compatriots, who were planting chocks under the wheels of the schooner. The crowd, seeing that no more immediate entertainment was to be had, began to disperse.

  Vinnie turned to Emily. The younger sister’s face wore a mottled flush.

  “Oh, Emily! I’ve never been so mortified in my life! Look at Austin, consorting with those mountebanks! How shall I ever attract a husband now!? Not to mention how Father is going to explode when he returns! There’ll be hell to pay!

  Emily had never heard her sister swear before. It rather thrilled her. A kind of glorious exaltation had come upon Emily with Crookes’s speech. All her life, Emily had secretly considered herself a rebel and even something of a thrill-seeker, though her thrills had been limited to the mental variety. “How I love danger!” she had written in her girlish diary. Now, with this fabulous and improbable ship sitting here like a slap in the face of placid, conservative Amherst, she felt as if her real life were just beginning.

  Where was Walt, to share this excitement with her, and urge her on?

  Tugging Emily’s hand, Vinnie pleaded, “Please, let’s go home. . . .”

  Emily disengaged from her sister. “You may scurry home if you wish, Vinnie. But I intend to see what else they’re up to.”

  Vinnie appeared shocked. “But Emily—”

  At that moment, a familiar resonant tenor thrilled Emily’s ears.

  “I think that only sailors, far from land, will ever truly appreciate my poems.”

  7

  “HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS”

  ALL AROUND EMILY, the whispering Leaves like Women interchanged Exclusive Confidences.

  And since Emily was a woman too, she could understand what they were saying.

  He is true to you. He is here when you want him.

  Her heart light as eiderdown, Emily turned about.

  Twice as big as life he stood, Walt Whitman, a kosmos, turbulent, fleshy, sensual, singer of himself.

  The difference between remembering him and actually seeing him was like the Liquor in the Jug as opposed to the Liquor between the Lips.

  Whitman beamed at the women, his bearded cheeks crinkling. “How good to see you abroad, Emily. And you too, Miss Lavinia. The very folds of both your clothes, your style as I watched you pass in the street, and, most especially, the contours of your shapes downwards inspired me deliriously.”

  Gawking, Vinnie opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it once more.

  “Well, I never—! Emily, you can find your way home alone!”

  And with that ejaculation, Emily’s sister stalked off, swinging her market basket like a truncheon.

  Walt was crestfallen. “I fear I have offended your sister. Please forgive me, Emily
. It is something that happens all the time. I forget that not everyone is as spontaneous and free as Walt Whitman.”

  “Oh, don’t believe her indignation for a minute, Walt. She was secretly pleased, I’m sure. It’s just that she could not show so in public. I myself might have departed just so, a few days ago, in the mock affront demanded by propriety.”

  Walt laid an assuming hand on Emily’s shoulder. “I sensed as soon as I saw you today that a change long underway in you was well-nigh complete. I am happy to have played a part in it, however small.”

  For once, Emily chose not to spoil her new confidence by analyzing it to pieces. She shifted closer to Walt so that his whole brawny arm slid naturally around her shoulders. Protected in his embrace, she felt even more assured.

  “Let us go see what my brother and his cohorts are up to.”

  “Exactly where I was tending myself.”

  Walt and Emily walked up to the wheeled schooner. Under the shade of its elevated bow, Austin, Sutton, Davis and Crookes were prying the lid off a crate that had just been delivered by a local merchant and his wagon. Spotting the duo, the laborers paused. Sutton hailed Walt gleefully, and Austin glared suspiciously at his sister’s compromising attitude. Davis and Crookes, after a brief nod, resumed their prying attack on the lid.

  “What have we here, Hen?” asked Walt.

  Grunting, Crookes answered for him. “It’s the ideoplastic tubes. We’ve got to clamp them to their fixtures on the ship and wire them in circuit. Then we’ll be prepared to set out. Perhaps as early as tomorrow.”

  With a creaking of wood and squealing of nails, the lid of the large box finally gave way. The men lowered it to the ground, and Emily peered curiously inside.

  Nestled in straw, layer by layer, were dozens of Crookes tubes, each filled with a misty gray substance that swirled and coiled like a narrow Fellow in the Grass.

  Emily’s chest pinched with a tighter breathing, and a Zero at the Bone.

  “Walt—I don’t feel well. Can we go?”

  Crookes evinced little sympathy for Emily’s distress. “By all means, go. The four of us can manage quite easily to mount these electro-spiritual phials. Why don’t you and the lady attend to the ostriches, Wally? That’s more in your line, what with all your talk of loving the birds and baboons.”