by H. L. Burke
Nyssa took the lid off the box. A silver marble, about the size of a coin, with a tiny clockwork key sticking from its side and a chain attached to the top, rested inside. She took it out and turned the key. With a click, the sphere unfolded, opening into a silver flower. A chill went down her spine. “Oh …”
“Do you like it?” Ellis’s asked, his eyes earnest.
She nodded, somehow unable to speak.
“It’s not perfect. I’m not exactly a silversmith.”
She found her voice, but it came out in a rasp. “No, it is perfect.”
He took the chain from her hand and fastened it about her neck. It rested cool against her skin. She quivered. He let out a long breath. His fingertips trailed over the silver rose, then across her collarbone, making her heart race. His hand found the back of her neck, and he pulled her in for a lingering kiss. The world blurred, and she tasted salt.
His lips broke from hers. “Nyss, are you crying? Why?”
“I … I don’t even know.” She let him dry her eyes with a handkerchief. The Victrola serenaded them in lilting three-quarter time. “Do you remember what you said about your parents? On Christmas, how they would dance?”
His cheeks reddened. “Yes, well, that … that’s not important.”
“It sounded like it was when you said it.” She stroked his soft, dark hair.
“The memory means something. I won’t lie. I would give anything to dance with you right now, but you’re not a miracle worker. I don’t need that to be happy.”
“Yes, but I wanted you to have …” She drew a deep breath. This could hurt him, but he needed to understand all the idiocy she’d put him through. Bracing herself, she blurted out, “Henri is a dance instructor.”
His eyes widened. Her heart pounded painfully. His face contorted, and for a moment she thought he was going to cry, then he burst out laughing. “Of course he is ... Oh Nyss, is that what you’ve been up to?” He kissed her cheek.
“I wanted to give you something you wouldn’t forget, something that meant something. I thought I could learn from a book, but Amara said Henri was the best.”
“Yeah, he’s kind of Amara’s type. I can see that.” He rubbed his forehead. “So you didn’t learn much dancing, I’m guessing?”
“No, but I realized something.” She slipped her hand into his and stood. “We’ve never needed anyone to teach us how to be together. Sure, we’ve stumbled around like naive idiots for most of our relationship, but we’ve somehow always found our own way to do things.” She guided his other hand to her waist then settled her right hand on his shoulder. “I want to dance with you, Ellis. Not Henri. You.”
He gave a wavering laugh. “I’m not sure why, but I’m anxious.”
“Henri and I never got very far with the waltz. He said I couldn’t follow correctly. You, though, you I think I can follow.”
“A moment.” He turned a switch, and his chair adjusted into braces, pushing him into a standing position. His hand caressed her waist, and his fingers interlocked with hers.
Oh, Henri wouldn’t like that. No spinning. She laughed at the memory.
He raised an eyebrow. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, this is perfect.”
He rolled slightly forward, then back. She moved with him. Their motion became a gentle rocking. His hold on her waist tightened. His hand migrated to the middle of her back and drew her against him. She melted against his body, her cheek pressed against his firm chest.
Warmth surrounded her. His heart thrummed in her ear, and her breathing synced with his. Back and forth, their path becoming shorter each time, like a pendulum winding down. Finally they stood still, arms about each other, his hands rubbing up and down her back. Her eyes squeezed shut to everything that wasn’t him.
The pistons in his bracers hissed as his chair returned to being a chair. She reformed with it, finding herself folded onto his lap. His arms surrounded her, his lips caressing her neck and face. It was no longer a dance, but that didn’t matter. She gripped his shirt and pressed her mouth hard against his. A hunger for his touch overwhelmed her, making his embrace seem perfect yet somehow not enough.
“Hey, Nyssa! Ellis!” Theo’s voice echoed up the stairs.
Ellis drew back, his face flushed and his hair ruffled. Nyssa froze.
“Mrs. H wants to know if you’ll be ready for dinner soon!” the boy called.
Ellis scoffed. “Sure she does. She’s probably guessed what we’re doing up here and wants to make certain I’m behaving myself.”
Nyssa stood, feeling oddly lightheaded. Tingles swept up and down her body. She inhaled to steady herself.
“We’ll be down in a minute,” she called to Theo.
“Ah.” Ellis stuck out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.
She held up her hand. “No ring, Mr. Dalhart.”
“Blast, I knew I forgot something.” He chuckled. “Maybe next Christmas?”
A pleasant jolt cut through her, and she nodded. “I think I’d like that.”
“It’s a date, then. Let’s go see if we can help get dinner ready.” With a smile, he wheeled away from her.
Nyssa rubbed her neck, still warm from his kisses. Did I just become engaged to be engaged? Is that even a thing?
Her cheeks ached from a smile she couldn’t control, and her whole being quivered.
“I think I love Christmas.”
The End
Nyssa Glass and the Electric Heart
Copyright © 2016 H. L. Burke
To all my betas, critique partners, and writer buddies.
H. L.
Chapter One
Nyssa Glass switched her goggles to a higher magnification setting and took out her smallest screwdriver. Cautiously, she unfastened the casing on the broken videophone. Cracks spread like spider veins across the viewscreen, but it would be a simple fix. Just remove the metal frame, clear any shards from the inner workings, and put a new panel in its place. Of course, she needed to find every last bit of glass, no matter how tiny. If not, one might wiggle its way into the wires later and slice through the insulation.
“I wish I could go with you tonight,” Theo said.
Nyssa started. She’d almost forgotten her eight-year-old cousin was in the room. Pushing her goggles up into her wiry brown hair, she eyed Theo. He sat on a stool across the shop from her, hunched over his school reader. Behind him, the window display was filled to bursting with new merchandise, radiosets, pentelegraphs, even a bronze handled Victrola with a massive projection-cone.
“Ellis and I don’t get much time alone,” she said. “You can let us have one evening out. After all, we’ve taken you with us on the majority of our recent dates.”
His bottom lip stuck out and his pale gray eyes were sullen. “Yeah, but you’ve never taken me to a fancy place like The Palms.”
Nyssa wrinkled her nose and imagined Theo squirming on the other side of a white linen tablecloth and shining crystal settings. He’d turn up his nose at the refined cuisine, wishing it were pancakes or ice cream. “You’d be bored out of your mind. I’m sure Mrs. H will cook you something special since it’s just the two of you tonight.” Their housekeeper always knew how to cheer Theo up. He’d be in good hands. “Concentrate on your schoolwork. I know your teacher wanted you to read at least two chapters.”
The boy groaned. “This book is so boring. All about good little kids learning their lessons and doing dull stuff. Plus nobody talks like real life, either.”
“Tell you what.” Nyssa leaned over the shop counter. “You finish that chapter, and I’ll let you pick out one of my mystery novels to read.”
His eyes widened. “You mean the ones with the murders?”
“Sure.” She laughed.
“Bully!”
Nyssa replaced the screen and put her goggles into her leather satchel, which hung from a peg behind the counter. The shop looked clean and organized. Nothing really left to do, and not a customer to be seen, a slow day
at the end of a long week. The wall clock ticked down the minutes ’til closing.
I wish it would hurry up. She was eager to get away for some fine food and adult conversation.
Ellis had been gone all day on unspecified errands. He’d been mysterious of late, odd for him. In the year they’d been together, they’d rarely kept secrets from each other, but she could tell from the strange smile that often crept across his lips that he was up to something. Still, he’d tell her in his own time.
A steam car rattled by, blaring its horn. Nyssa looked up. A stocky woman darted across the street in the car’s wake. She wore a white, sweat-stained blouse and navy blue culottes. Her copper red hair, piled high like a bird’s nest, overshadowed her crimson face.
Must be a tourist from the Continent. The San Azulan heat always hits them hard.
The woman approached the shop. The bell jangled overhead as she pushed her way in.
“Theo, would you fetch our customer a glass of water?” Nyssa said.
He nodded and slipped out the back of the shop, towards their living quarters.
Nyssa put on her best “customer service” smile. The woman wasn’t much older than seventeen-year-old Nyssa, perhaps twenty. She had a round face, pale beneath her flush.
“The weather on this island takes some getting used to,” Nyssa said. “Welcome to our shop. We sell new and lightly used videophones, radiosets, and pentelegraphs, but we also offer repair services.”
“Oh, I’ll just browse a bit.” The woman strolled over to the window display and ran her finger over the glass, leaving a smudge. “No name on the shop sign. Just ‘Electrical Repairs.’ You ashamed of your name, or something?”
Nyssa raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see any need to advertise my name when my work speaks for itself. Speaking of my work, if there’s something particular you’re looking for, I can help you find it.”And get you out of here faster.
“Well, a name carries a reputation. Hard to escape a reputation.”The woman dabbed at her face with her sleeve and turned in a slow circle. “Quaint little shop. Reminds me of a crime scene I investigated back in New Taured.”
A chill cut down Nyssa’s spine. She cleared her throat. “You’re a police officer?”
The woman faced Nyssa with a smug smile. “Junior Detective Brigit O’Hara of the New Taured Capital City Police Force. That particular crime scene was such a sad case.” She narrowed her eyes as if waiting for Nyssa to flinch. “Old man, shop owner, killed in his place of business by the employee he hired out of reform school. Gave the girl a second chance, and she repaid him with murder.”
Nyssa’s shoulders hunched at the description of the crime she had been framed for almost a year before, and it took all her willpower not to run.She’s obviously trying to startle me into saying something incriminating, butI have nothing to fear. San Azula doesn’t have an extradition treaty with New Taured.
“We thought it was a robbery gone wrong, at first, that maybe he’d caught the girl skimming, but a look at the financials couldn’t prove that, and the girl left a full till,” O’Hara continued. “We never pinpointed a motive.”
“Maybe because the girl in question is innocent,” Nyssa said through clenched teeth.
O’Hara laughed. “Come now, Miss Glass. We all know innocent people don’t run.”
Footsteps creaked on the wooden floors, and Theo returned holding a glass of water. He offered it to O’Hara. She took it, her eyes never leaving Nyssa. Theo glanced from one woman to the other.
“Why don’t you see if Mrs. H needs any help with the chores, Theo?” Nyssa said.
He frowned. “But I have to finish my reading, remember?”
“It’s all right. You can have a break.”
Theo shrugged and left the room, checking over his shoulder as he went.
O’Hara gulped the water then slammed the glass on the counter. “Cozy set up you have here. Nice life for a wanted criminal.”
“Whether you believe I’m innocent or not doesn’t matter. I’m not wanted in San Azula, only New Taured.” Nyssa crossed her arms. “I could tell you what really happened in the shop, if you’re interested in the truth, but if you have your mind made up, you might as well leave. You have no authority here.”
“You think you can get away with it, don’t you? Mock the law from your safe little tropical paradise? Convinced your victim wasn’t important enough to merit an international manhunt?” O’Hara’s lip curled in disgust. “He may not have been wealthy or influential, but he deserves justice, and I’m not going to let you spit in the face of that.”
“Mr. Calloway was a good man, like a father to me.” Nyssa’s stomach clenched at the memory of him lying dead on the shop floor, the mysterious man in the top hat grinning over his body like a hungry wolf … but that man was now dead, just like Mr. C. The case might not be closed, but his killer had paid the price. “If you want justice, I respect that, but you won’t find it here. Let me show you out.”
She stepped out from behind the counter, her arm extended towards the door. O’Hara lunged for her and grabbed her wrist. Nyssa tried to wrench away, but the woman’s grasp tightened painfully.
“You were my first case … and my only case.” O’Hara’s voice sank to a menacing hiss. “My superiors don’t think it’s worth pursuing, but I’m not going to let a murdering minx skip off into the sunset. I tracked you to Freeport, found the man who sold you false passports … then you made it out of the country to settle here, with this set up? Who paid for that? It wasn’t the old man’s money. We found no evidence of that sort of cash. Who bankrolled you, girl? Was the murder a paid hit?”
“Let me go!” Nyssa kicked out. Her booted toe sank into O’Hara’s shin. The woman dodged a second kick and pushed Nyssa against the counter.
“I’m onto you. I’m going to find a way to get you back to New Taured to stand trial for your crimes.”
Nyssa darted behind the counter. Ellis’s “fly zapper,” a metal rod that could let out an electric shock, lay beneath the till. If O’Hara came at Nyssa again, she was getting fried. Nyssa pointed a finger at O’Hara. “Get out before I call the real police.”
“You won’t be able to duck the law forever.” O’Hara sneered. “Get used to seeing this face, because it belongs to your new shadow.”
Nyssa waited until the door slammed behind O’Hara to exhale again. She sank to the floor, wrapping her arms about her trembling knees. It’s all right. She can’t do anything to me … but what if she finds out about Ellis?
Ellis wasn’t wanted for murder, but he was running from demons of his own. If word got out that the heir to the Dalhart fortune was alive and in San Azula, the vultures would descend.
The doorbell jingled. Nyssa cringed and reached for the fly zapper.
“Hello? Nyss? Theo?”
Cool relief swept through her at Ellis’s familiar voice, and she popped up.
Ellis steered his motorized wheelchair towards her. His brown eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed under his wavy black hair. “Were you sitting on the floor?”
She shrugged.
He wheeled around the counter and took her hand. “What’s wrong?”
Nyssa forced a laugh. “Apparently the New Taured police department decided the best use of their time was to send a detective here to threaten me.”
His face darkened. “Threaten you how?”
She concentrated on his long fingers wrapped around her hand. The tension in her neck and shoulders eased. “Just with eventual arrest—to let me know I’m still a wanted woman.” She squeezed his hand before letting go. “It’s ridiculous. Just a toothless threat.”
He rubbed the arms of his chair. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s been almost a year, and you’re half a world away. Why are they coming after you now?”
“Well, they do think I killed a man.” She straightened her tools, easing each back into the outline she’d painted for it.
“Not to diminish the value of Mr. C’s life, bu
t people are murdered every day. The police don’t have the resources needed for an international manhunt to solve a nearly year-old crime.” He frowned. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“It seemed personal to her, somehow.” Nyssa drew a deep breath. “I’m not worried about me, but she asked where I got the money for the shop. Do you think she’ll be able to track that back to your family?”
“I doubt it. Even if she does, it was mine to take. I’m the last living member of my family.”
“But what if she finds out who you are?” Nyssa sat on the edge of the counter. “If news gets out that you’re still alive—”
“Then I’ll deal with it.” He squeezed her knee. “The choice to separate myself from my father’s legacy was due to preference, not preservation. I’m not eager to be a Dalhart again, but it wouldn’t kill me.”
The knot in her stomach began to uncoil. “We’ve just made such a good life for ourselves here. I don’t want anything to jeopardize it.” She bent down and kissed him.
“It won’t.”
The wall clock chimed five.
“Shouldn’t you be fancying yourself up?” Ellis asked, a twinkle returning to his eyes. “I thought women took hours fussing in front of the mirror before a date.”
She laughed. “Our reservation’s in two hours. I could comb each individual hair twice and we’d still have time.”
“True. Still, I want tonight to be perfect, and that means forgetting about this police business.” He caressed her knee. “Think you can manage that?”
“For you, I can manage anything.” She slipped off the counter. “I think I’ll go fuss in front of the mirror for a bit.”
Ellis laughed.
Nyssa cast one last glance around the shop. Her heart sank to her stomach. Across the street stood the red-haired woman, sweat streaming down her face in the San Azulan sun. Nyssa opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. Let O’Hara watch me. I’m safe here. She’s not going to ruin my evening with Ellis.