“Do you like it, Edison?” she asked me with wide hopeful eyes, sinew dripping from the razor.
“I do,” I replied with a smile. I reached over and gently slid the razor from her grip and wiped the sinew on the leg of my pants. Folding it, I slid it into my back pocket when London suddenly jumped off of the body and threw her arms around me.
I laughed quietly and put my arms around her, returning her embrace and let my eyes slowly drift back toward three two five seven. I wanted to hear the sound of his voice. I wanted to feel the warmth of his skin when he came to life. I wanted to look into his eye and have him look back into mine. I wanted to know if he would be strong enough to survive London.
“Shall I wake him up?” she whispered gleefully.
“Yes.”
London pulled away from me and began to quickly hook up almost every exposed part of three two five seven to something I couldn’t quite see. Something that she, for now, had kept hidden underneath a huge, dirty sheet. I didn’t know what she was doing under there and it almost frightened me.
I saw her moving quickly underneath the sheet before she finally slid back out and climbed up onto the table where three two five seven was lying still. She put leaned down close to him, almost perching like a vulture, and pushed hard on his chest. Just once was enough. The chest... It started to move up and down almost as if though he were breathing.
I put a hand to my mouth so she wouldn’t hear my sharp breath. I didn’t want her to think she had done anything wrong, since this was what she wanted to do. She wanted to create life and she wanted to be a mother, but on her own terms.
“Open your eyes,” she whispered to him with a giggle.
I took a step back as I watched the only eye he had roll back and forth behind its lid. I took another step back when I saw the eyelid start to flutter and he slowly opened it to look at his creator. It was his first time seeing her as an almost complete piece and she squealed happily when he smiled faintly at her.
“See? I knew I could do it too,” she said to me with a satisfied smile.
I returned her smile weakly as my eyes drifted back to him. He kept his eyes on London and I felt a pang of jealousy, that something so majestic still hadn’t noticed me.
It was so strange how London had managed to make something like this. Stranger because she was my sister and stranger still because I felt like I was looking at everything I ever wanted.
"Well? What do you think, Eddie?" London asked me with wide, hopeful eyes.
"I think you should probably get off of the table and let him move," I replied shifting my eyes to her. I smiled to let her know that I wasn't reprimanding her, only suggesting. Ever since London had come to live with me, I did everything I could to ease her transition. Coming back from her ... ordeal was trying enough. I didn’t want to add extra stress to her; especially since I knew that her medication didn’t work on her anymore. Besides, I lead a very lonely life and my sister meant the world to me.
She was all I had, after all.
London did as I asked her and came over to where I stood, dropping down on her bottom and crossing her legs underneath herself. I leaned down and affectionately ran my hand over the top of her head prompting her to look up and smile at me.
A cough from the creation caused us both to look at it. I raised an eyebrow and loosely crossed my arms over my chest as I took a few tentative steps forward. I wanted to better inspect her work because I knew she was looking for my approval. The closer I got to him the more enamored I felt myself becoming. Every stitch, every scar was a masterpiece; a tragic perfection that made my heart race.
"Can you understand me?" I asked him quietly as I got closer.
His eyes, rather eye, turned toward me and he nodded.
"Good. Give me your hand," I commanded when I was finally standing next to him.
With an unsteady tremble, he raised his arm slightly off of the table he had been laid on and reached for my hand. Our fingers grazed each other’s at first, sending a slight proverbial shock through me, before I clamped my hand tightly around his and pulled him up to a seated position. He looked into my eyes with such a sweet innocence that I almost felt like dismantling him. I knew that London would only hurt him rather than love him, but what I had to ask myself was who needed this creature more? Me or London?
"On your feet," I said quietly.
I helped bring his legs around the side of the table, then put his arm around my shoulders. With a gentle pull he was on his feet; unsteadily but nonetheless. I closed my eyes for a moment as I listened to his ticks and whirs that were now gently pressed against me. I wondered if he could feel my heart beating slightly faster than before. If he did, I wondered if he cared.
"Does he have any emotions?" I asked London as he and I took our first steps forward together.
"Fear," she replied with a big grin.
"And what can he feel?"
"Pain," she squealed happily.
My eyes slowly raised to her as I put my hand on his bare stomach to stop him. How could I tell London that she had done something terrible without hurting her? How could I tell her that when this was first done, the reconstruction of another, that all human emotions were supposed to be fed into the creation? The internal ticks had stopped, the whirring being the only sound coming from him now.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because that's all I felt for a long time. Pain and fear. Fear when I was sent away and pain when I had to survive the Orphanage," she replied matter-of-factly, as she began to rock back and forth.
I sighed unhappily. Rocking was the way she would try to calm herself, which meant that drudging up the memories of the Orphanage was hurting her internally. I turned to him, to three two five seven, and wondered what horrors awaited him.
"Do you know what room you want him in?" I asked London.
"Up, up, up! The highest room in all of the world!" she sang out jumping to her feet.
"You wait here and I'll take him, then we can clean up together, okay?" I said to her.
She nodded and gleefully spun in a circle, arms out at shoulder length, faster and faster, until I thought I would throw up just from watching her. I shook my head and walked the creature toward the door and out into the hallway.
"Let me secure this around you," I said to him as I reached over to the window and pulled off the curtain. It was true that I failed to mention this entire time that he was naked because I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want him to know how deeply he had already affected me and how badly I wanted to set him free.
My first idea was to wrap the curtain around his body like a Roman Soldier being celebrated by the Emperor, but it was just a fantasy I had since childhood and reading about ancient civilizations. Nothing I did with three two five seven would be real so I decided best to treat him with the respect I would want and wrapped the curtain around his waist to protect his modesty.
"Is this okay?" I asked him, stepping back to examine my work. He looked down and nodded. Not that he knew any better, I mean it was obvious by what London had said that she had just constructed a physical being to torture, but I would do my best to make it as quick as possible and as few times as I could manage for him.
"My name is Edison," I said taking him by the hand and wrapping it around my arm. It would be easier for me to lead him slowly down the hallway. I always was a bit on the fragile side and if I had to support the weight of him all the way up to where she wanted him, I'd probably collapse from exhaustion.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smile at me and I felt a pang of guilt. Could I do this? Could I let him survive the way he was, unfinished and innocent, to be corrupted by London’s terrors? I knew that I didn’t have a choice. If I deconstructed him, London would think she had done something wrong and most likely run away again. After the last time she left it took me months to find her and I didn’t have the want or energy to try to search for her anymore. That’s why I kept her here in my home and praised every last th
ing that she did; regardless of how cruel or evil because rarely were the days that she did anything kind.
But I pushed the way I was thinking of her out of my mind and helped three two five seven down the hall and up the stairs. We had a ways to go and I was interested to see if he could make the climb without collapsing. It would be a true testament to what London and I had done together. I guess that bit is slightly important isn’t it? That while even London created this creature completely, it wasn’t without some direction in the early stages. She had to know what kind of material would hold best and be the easiest to replace if it began to rot. She had to know how to wire some of the insides and where to place the cogs and wheels.
I supervised for the most part and she put him together. Only in the beginning like I said. Once I was certain that London could achieve what she was setting out to do, I left her to her work. Tonight, however, was the first time I found myself wondering if this was a good idea. I didn’t care about the others – the others! I’ll put him in the room next to the half made female!
“If you feel like you can’t do this, you have to tell me so I can stop, okay?” I said to him as soon as we reached the stairs.
“I can do it,” he replied, confidently putting one of his hands on the railing and beginning his ascent.
“But if you can’t—”
“I can,” he reassured me. I looked into the hollow eye socket on the left side of his face. I could see the smaller wheels moving in the openly stitched skin underneath. I knew he couldn’t see me, but he smiled again. I assumed it to be because he knew that I was staring again.
“Sorry,” I muttered, turning my attention back to the stairs.
“Thank you,” he replied as we moved slowly up the steps. “For helping me.”
There were no words for how my conscience betrayed me hearing his sincere thanks. He thought I was helping him but little did he know that I was really dooming him to a terrible fate. A fate that I helped create because London’s mental instabilities... I hadn’t been able to cure them all.
The slow climb tortured me. Each step was one closer to me losing myself into the need to save him by deconstruction and being London’s salvation by leaving him alone to her mercies.
Once we reached the empty room that I knew would become his own personal hell, I helped him in and gave him a pair of cloth pants to wear.
“If you ever get lonely, knock on that wall,” I said quietly before I walked out and locked the door firmly behind me.
I leaned against the door in the dark hallway and listened to his shuffling, curious footsteps for a few moments.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the darkness before I ran down to the main floor of the home. Downstairs, in the lowest part of the house, I could hear London back to work creating another being and I knew that the one I had just imprisoned would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I walked to the closet at the end of the hallway, pulled my coat out, and walked out the front door as I put it on.
I’ll see you again, three two five seven. I’ll be the savior that you’ll so desperately need when the time comes. I’m sorry.
The Ballad of London Blackhouse
The shadows betray me.
The seasons hold no meaning.
The sun that peaks through Winter's underground rots me and I no longer care.
I sit here in Winter’s cavern of ice and redemption making sure to stay away from anything that would keep preserving me. I no longer craved life. I no longer craved human emotions. With my face buried in my hands, I thought of Edison, I thought of Winter,and I thought mostly of London.
The devil incarnate with the blackest of hearts hidden behind a pretty face and mental anguish. I loved her at one time, with all of the parts of me that were taken from others. My clockwork pieces cared for her not one way or the other. London had made us all, at least that’s what we were lead to believe until Edison revealed the truth to me. He let her finish me without his help because he said he cared for me the first time he saw me. Loved me. Cherished me. But if that were true then why let London make such a monster? Why not stop her before it was too late?
Because London wanted to be the perfect mother to perfect children, I thought to myself. She said that to me one rare, merciful night. I remember it so clearly.
I was half made, only the torso part of me was completed and she carried me around like a baby and cradled me when she sat. She would have nights where she would mumble about her life growing up and how she marched in a parade one time. She would stroke my hair and tell me that she’d be the perfect mother as long as I was the perfect child. The next night she had one of her manic fits and with a welding iron burned the number 3257 in my forearm. The louder I cried out in pain the wider her eyes would get and the more pleasure she would get out of it.
The splashing in the ice pool drew my attention away from my thoughts for a moment. I glanced over and saw a wave of pale pink hair hovering above the water. Then almost like a mermaid she burst through the water half naked. I smiled. I couldn’t believe how well she and I got along now.
Cassara was one of London’s assassins and creations. She had been sent to either bring me home or kill me. She succeeded at neither and wound up disappearing off the map for a while because London wasn’t very forgiving if you failed her. Somehow she would up running into Winter who seemed determined to redeem her and save her from our Mother.
She was a powerful ally and proved it when we faced London together. Even if we couldn’t save Winter. Even if we killed most of them. Even if Edison died at my hands and London escaped. At least we had each other. But why did that bring me no comfort?
Winter tried to save me and I let her die. Edison tried to love me and keep me away from London and I killed him.
Why did Cassara stay with me? Couldn’t she realize by now that I was a danger to her whether I wanted to be or not? There were nights where she would come out to the rock I slept on and put her arm around me, falling asleep next to me so I wouldn’t be alone. Each morning she did that I would gently place her in the pool so that she wouldn’t begin to rot. She was like a younger sister now who desperately wanted to take care of me. It was odd how close we had gotten because of what happened.
So much death and destruction and the one person that I desperately wanted to see dead escaped. I had promised myself that it would either be London’s life or my own. When we returned here I waited for Cassara’s sobbing to quiet down into even breathing before I attempted to take my own life, only she hadn’t been sleeping, she’d been watching me with curiosity. Cassara saved me that night and even now I still resented her slightly for it.
“It will give you another chance at London, but only if you’re alive Caelum,” she had said to me. “For Winter and Edison, you have to stay alive.”
“Are you okay?” she now asked looking at me from the side of the ice pool. Her wet pink hair covered most of her bare body as she sat there.
I shook my head. I nodded. I didn’t know what I was.
I turned away as she stood and walked into what was once Winter’s room. She came back out with a white robe wrapped around her tiny frame holding something that looked of old leather and binding. She scooted me over and sat next to me with her hands firmly grasping her treasure.
“I ... I took this from her one day. I’ve read most of it and what I haven’t read I haven’t been able to make out. This belonged to her, Caelum. This belonged to our Mother. These are her thoughts. This is what her early life was like. This is why she desperately wanted to be the perfect mother to perfect children. I ... pitied her after I read this. I finally learned that emotion. Pity. My heart felt like it wanted to stop working the further along I read. I know she put you through more than she put the rest of us through Caelum, and I know you have more reason to want her dead than the rest of us and I will help you as I promised before, but I really think you need to read this. I think it might help you understand her.”
S
he placed a somewhat thick, old journal in my lap and as she walked away said, “He’s in it too Caelum.”
Cassara was giving me a great opportunity and I still didn’t know if I wanted it. To know why London spent so many nights torturing me, why she took such great pleasure in my pain, was something I always wanted to know.And here, the answer was now in my possession but I hesitated. I didn’t know if I wanted to understand London anymore. I knew I wouldn’t pity her any more than she pitied us.
I could also see what Edison was like as a child something I couldn’t possibly imagine. I could read about when Edison was alive again.
I heard a heavy sigh and a splash as Cassara jumped back into the pool and hovered on her back. I knew she sighed because of my hesitation. Did I owe her this?
No. You owe it to Winter. You owe it to Edison.
I picked up the book and pulled the strings away from the front cover. I glanced up for a moment and felt the heat of the sun shine down on me. With a deep breath and a curious mind, I opened the journal to the first page and began to read about the life of London Blackhouse.
The Arrival
The carriages moved slowly back and forth along the rocky path. I wasn't sure where I was going and I still didn't know what was happening to me. The entire trip had been a blur. Wherever I was was silent, with the occasional cracking of a whip followed by a horse's whinny.
I felt like I had been tossed back into the middle ages. Where in the world would this still be happening? Why was it happening to me?
I couldn't be bothered with thoughts of self-pity right now because wherever I was being hauled off too wasn't going to be pleasant. The only thing I was sure of was that I needed to find my way home as soon as I had the chance. Of course, I wouldn't know if escaping would be plausible until I found out where I was.
Unwound (The Symphony of Brass and Bone) Page 13