by Ann Hunter
“Because—Oh, Arrow, stop it. Are you really still at it?”
Arrow’s head fell back in a laugh and his scarlet hood fell back to reveal ginger hair and a freckled face. From his countenance, Rebecca reckoned he was sixteen or seventeen at best. He held a long pipe in his hands and aimed it at the ground below.
Rebecca crossed with Pyp to see Arrow take a deep breath, wrap his mouth on one end of the pipe, and exhale hard. A silver line buzzed toward a guard roaming the street below. The poor man dropped like a dead fly. Arrow laughed again.
Pyp stole the pipe away and cuffed the young man upside the head. She rolled her eyes and looked at Rebecca. “He never misses.”
Arrow rose and placed his hands on his hips, pursing his lips towards Rebecca. “I’m straight and true.” He winked at her.
Pyp rolled her eyes again. “You are disgusting.”
Arrow grinned.
Rebecca could not seem to suppress the heat that rose in her face.
She was pulled away again by the large hands of Quarren. Rebecca turned to him. “What about you? Don’t I get to match your name to a face?”
Pyp, who appeared to be close to twenty, was trying to keep Arrow’s blowgun away from him. “Trust me. Quarren’s nothing special to look at.”
“You ask—” Quarren began to say.
“Too many questions,” Rebecca interjected, “Pyp said as much.”
“The right questions.” Quarren pointed toward The Corporation. “There is a wrench in the cogs.”
“A big one,” Pyp added.
Arrow finally snatched his blowgun away. “It needs to be removed.”
“We are but three. We need a fourth to help us remove it,” Quarren said.
“A lever, you could say,” Pyp added, “Many hands make light the work and what not.”
They watched Prince Andrew shake hands and mingle amongst the people, beaming.
“The world does not need another Chief Executive Officer. It does not need a king for that matter,” Quarren said. “It needs a leader. The Corporation must be destroyed in order to return balance to the world.”
Rebecca felt a stirring inside her. Quarren’s words seemed to awaken something within her. “What do you propose?”
“We are going to assassinate King Andrus,” Arrow stated excitedly. Pyp and Quarren shot him icy looks.
Rebecca coughed at the forwardness. “Why do you want me? You don’t even know me.”
Quarren reached under his cloak and placed a familiar object in Rebecca’s hand. A small polished copper cog.
“What is this?” Rebecca asked, confused.
“You know what it is. But for all intents and purposes let us call it an idea.”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
Quarren lead Rebecca to the other side of the roof top and pointed out two men conversing pleasantly, quite contentedly distracted. “We want you to pickpocket something for us.”
“A reverse pick pocket,” Pyp corrected.
Rebecca looked at them with furrowed brow.
“They want you to put the cog in that man’s pocket,” Arrow sighed.
“Oh.” Rebecca looked at the cog again. Then backed up. “But why?”
Quarren picked up the cog. “This symbolizes an idea. A suggestion. The clock people will rise again. You will tell the people the world is about to change.” He put the cog back in her hands and gave her a gentle nudge.
Rebecca placed the cog in her apron pocket and carefully scaled down the building, trying not to fall to her piteous death. She stuck to the shadows, heart pounding, and worked her way around to the men. She glanced up to the roof top to see Pyp showing her approval with a closed fist and raised thumb.
Rebecca held her breath as she took the cog from her pocket. Her hands fumbled. The cog clattered against the cobblestone. She sucked in a breath and pressed herself against the corner, out of sight, as the noise drew the mens attention.
“Did you hear something?” one of them asked.
Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut tight as though it would make her invisible. She could just picture one of them leaning around the corner and catching her.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” said the other gentleman.
She breathed a sigh of relief and carefully crouched to retrieve the cog. One peek around the corner and she knew it was now or never. The two men were moving on, fading into the fog of ash and steam. Rebecca crept behind them, fingers tight on the toothy brass in her hands. She held her breath and slid it into the man’s pocket, then dashed back down the alley.
Quarren, Pyp, and Arrow were soon by her side and they watched from the shadows as the man felt the change of weight in his coat. He reached in and pulled out the cog. He considered it. His expression was concerned at first. Cogs had been outlawed. He showed his friend. They looked about. Then they put their heads together and walked down the street turning the cog over and over between them.
“Well done,” Quarren said. “I think you are our fourth. What is your name?”
Rebecca stared at her shaking hands and awed at what they had just done. She folded her fingers into a tight ball, drawing strength from her achievement. A single word tripped off her lips. “Ash.”
VIII
Rebecca staggered onto the lawn of her estate well after midnight. Her legs felt heavy and her feet ached from walking to and from the city. Her arms were complaining as well from climbing buildings with the crazy trio she had met before.
It all reeled inside her still, new and exciting. Pyp with her crazy, boyish hair. Arrow who was a plain boy and crazy. And mysterious Quarren. Rebecca wondered what he looked like. His voice was deep like the ocean.
Rebecca made her way to the workshop and collapsed onto her mattress. She cared not that she was in full dress. She was too tired to change those circumstances. Her hair cascaded over her cheek and forehead as her eyelids drooped. That night she dreamed of a green cloaked man with a trunk like a tree and a voice like the ocean.
When the last of the stars began to fade from the sky, Rebecca awoke. She crept into the cottage to stoke the hearth fire, and prepare tea and breakfast. While the kettle was boiling, she fed the chickens, weeded a bit in the early slivers of daylight, and then took a tray of offerings carefully up the stairs to Hesperia and her daughters. She served Hesperia first. She expected her to still be sleeping and hope not to wake her, but the woman was seated at a desk fully dressed and waiting for her.
“Where were you last night?”
“In the city, running the errands you asked of me.” Rebecca did not make eye contact with her as she set the tray down on the desk and prepared the tea. Hesperia liked it extra strong and very near boiling hot. No sugar. No honey. Soulless like the rest of her.
“You should have been back well before the evening hour.”
“On what horse?” Rebecca muttered.
Hesperia’s eyes narrowed.
“It took me several hours to walk there, Mum, several more to find the shops you wanted your goods from, and the remainder to return home.”
“We had no supper. The chickens also went to bed hungry. For this you will be punished.”
Rebecca frowned. “The Corporation was throwing a party, Mum. Swarms of people made it hard to move about. One got turned around between streets quite easily if one was not familiar.”
Cassandra and Brunhilda appeared in the doorway with bright eyes. “Party?”
“What sort of party?”
“The prince was throwing a party,” Rebecca informed them.
Cassandra and Brunhilda looked at each other and both let out an ear splitting squeal.
Rebecca winced.
“Was it well attended?”
“Did you see the prince?”
Rebecca began preparing their tea since they were both there. Cassandra enjoyed her tea weak, but with no sweetness. Brunhilda liked hers with honey and milk. “Yes, and yes.”
The two girls looked at each other once m
ore, took each others hands and pranced in place giddily. “What did he look like?”
“Was he handsome?”
“Is he tall?”
“Is he dark?”
Rebecca looked between them. “Have you not seen post cards of him?”
Cassandra swatted the air. “Post cards can often be exaggerated. Did you see him?”
Rebecca sighed and passed the tea cups and saucers to them. “Only from far away. He’s exactly as he appears on the post cards. Our people have no need of embellishing good features.”
Brunhilda practically fell over with an overstated swoon. “Oh, I wish I could go!”
Cassandra took her sister’s tea cup before the girl lost her balance, and stared down at her. “Why would you want to go? You are so clumsy he would not even think about wishing to dance with you.”
Brunhilda frowned. “I’m pretty. Surely he likes pretty girls.”
Cassandra gave Brunhilda her tea cup and saucer back. “Surely.” She straightened and sipped her tea. “But I am the pretty one.”
“Perhaps he likes a girl with a good head on her shoulders,” Brunhilda retorted.
Cassandra took another sip and rolled her eyes. “I am also the brains, Hilda. I’m afraid you are swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool.”
Brunhilda kicked her feet and legs like an impetuous toddler.
Rebecca took the tray and carefully worked her way around them, going down stairs. She listened to them squabble. No matter the point Brunhilda brought up, Cassandra always found a way to shoot it down. Rebecca wanted to pity Brunhilda, but the two girls’ selfishness and haughtiness disinclined her from fully doing so.
Hesperia kept Rebecca ridiculously busy with menial tasks throughout the day in addition to her regularly scheduled chores. Rebecca did not mind so long as she could think about Pyp and Arrow and especially Quarren.
What they wished to do may not be considered noble, but the intended ending was. They made it seem as though Prince Andrew could serve as a better leader than his father. Either that or Pyp and Arrow wanted to take down the entire operation and install Quarren as a revolutionary leader. To place cogs in the pockets of city folk could certainly make a statement. If they knew who was behind it, they might unify and raise Quarren up. But did Quarren want the power for himself or did they mean to raise Prince Andrew to power?
Rebecca felt a stirring within her. She wanted to join them. To continue her mother’s work. To fight and win and find her place in the world. But how would she ever get back to them? It took so long to get to the city by foot and too long to return home. She’d obviously be missed. Not sentimentally. Those women in the cottage were too hard hearted for sentiments, Rebecca was sure. They would notice her not there because they were too lazy, too uppity to do anything for themselves. Not being able to escape them and join Quarren, Pyp, and Arrow, made Rebecca’s heart ache. Anywhere was better than here right now. Even if it meant choking on ash and coal and pollution and dying a horrible death like Lilly had. Or worse. If any of them were caught in an attempt on King Andrus’s life, they would receive the harshest punishment of all. Life in prison. Because to rot away in jail was worse than an execution. To sit and watch the world go by was to sit idly, unable to do anything about anything was agony in of itself.
Rebecca could not stand another minute thinking about it. The moment she was dismissed from service for the evening, she snuck around the back of the workshop towards the orchards and made her way to the church. She hoped Preacher would still be about, burning some midnight oil.
The church was open when she arrived. Candles were lit. There was a certain air about the place that made the hairs on Rebecca’s arm stand on end, as well as the hackles on her neck. She had not set foot in the place since her mother had passed into the Ever Sleep. Nerves in her belly told her she was not welcome, but her head told her that was nonsense. Preacher had always welcomed every one, even lost souls like Rebecca.
For the most part, the chapel was no different than she remembered it. Creaky floorboards, unforgiving wooden pews, white walls ever reaching to the rafters above. The one new thing Rebecca noticed was a giant gear and cog painted high on the wall behind the pulpit and a statue of Maker Khronos forging The Great Wheel. If King Andrus had ever forbidden their way of life, one would not know it here.
Rebecca drew close to the candles lining several shelves where she knelt to pray. If Preacher was not here to help, then perhaps Khronos might finally hear her, knowing she had a desire to make right the world, to remove the wrench in the works that was King Andrus.
She bowed her head reverently, trying to remember what her parents had taught her. Over the last few years, she had had little reason to speak to the great Maker. Many parts of her heart had even grown hardened against him.
In this moment of flickering light and long shadows, she felt completely vulnerable and lost. What should she say? She was about to move her lips when she heard her name spoken.
“Rebecca, as I tick and tock, is that really you?”
Rebecca looked up in awe at the statue of Khronos wondering if she was going crazy or having some transcendal experience. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and followed it up. Preacher stood over her with a kind smile. Rebecca smiled back sheepishly and moved to rise, but Preacher shook his head. “Do not get up on account of me. I believe you were in the middle of something.”
“Not really, no.”
“No?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Really?” Preacher asked with eyebrows lifted.
“Really.”
He leaned over and whispered. “I know it must be very hard for you, Rebecca, to approach Maker Khronos after all that has happened, but He wants you to.”
“I don’t know what to say to him.”
Preacher patted her back. “You do not need to say a thing. Merely think it. If it comes from a place of earnest, He will sense it. Much like when a new cog grows hot before it is refined by the hammer.”
Rebecca looked down at her hands in her lap clasped in prayer. She looked up at Preacher. Maybe she was not ready for Khronos just yet. Preacher was here. She felt that could get the message to Khronos better than she could.
“I think I have found my place in The Great Wheel, Preacher.”
He looked at her with delight. “That’s… that’s wonderful.”
“I want to continue my mother’s work. In the city.” Should she tell him about Pyp, Quarren, and Arrow?
“The city is a dangerous place.”
“Tell me one thing I do not know.”
Preacher leaned against the pulpit rail.
“My home has become unwelcoming,” Rebecca continued. “Have you met my father’s new wife? May the God of Anti-Time take her!”
“I have heard of your new relatives, but have not met them yet. It is unfortunate you are unhappy with them. We do not get to choose our families.”
“I noticed,” Rebecca grimaced. “I need to get away from them. I do not mind working all day, but some of the things they insist I do are ridiculous. Can you help?”
“What do you suggest I do? I cannot simply take you away from them. You are very nearly old enough to strike out on your own, you know.”
“However, I fear Hesperia would never allow it. I think she quite likes keeping me under the heel of her shoe. Could you not come and take me away somehow? Say that Khronos has appeared to you and insists I am needed for service.”
Preacher frowned. “That would be sacrilege.”
“But not untrue. Please help me. I wish to serve Khronos.”
“Staying where you are, with your family, and learning to love them in spite of themselves, is also service to Khronos. To learn to live in harmony and—”
“No.” Rebecca rose with her fists clenched. “My life there is unimportant.”
“When you are in the service of Maker Khronos, nothing is unimportant,” Preacher said calmly.
Rebecca pulled back he
r sleeve to show Preacher where she had burned her mother’s name into her wrist.
His eyes widened. “Why would you hurt yourself like that? To make a cog like yourself unpolished and—”
“Every cog is unpolished and unperfect, Preacher,” Rebecca growled. “Some more so than others.”
Preacher’s face was fraught with concern.
Rebecca sheathed her arm and looked at him gravely. “Help me or I will help myself.”
Preacher sighed and began ambling down the aisle away from her. He paused near the door of the chapel and looked back at her. “I will see what I can do.”
IX
The day Preacher came for Rebecca was a joyous one indeed. He, against his conscience, did exactly as Rebecca urged him. He applied to Hesperia requesting that Rebecca join some mythical sisterhood in the city.
Hesperia was not willing at first. Preacher urged her that Rebecca was only a burden, and having her gone would make life more harmonious. He also offered that Hesperia would be written down as a large donor upon the records of the church, and always be viewed in the highest of virtues.
Preacher hunkered down with a guilty scowl upon his face as they drove away.
Rebecca wrestled a mammoth urge to laugh out loud and wondered if he had ever told such a whopping lie in the whole of his life.
They were silent the whole way to the city. Rebecca frowned at how much worse the country side looked every time they approached the city. The pollution reached further and further out each and every one day, quelling anything in its path.
She dreaded the thought of it ever reaching the hamlet, but it was becoming clear that if something significant did not happen soon, then the ashes surely would. Didn’t Andrus realize what he was doing? Could he not see the pollution destroying the food supply? Could he not taste how it was corrupting the waters? Did he not realize how many subjects it killed that he so eagerly taxed?
Rebecca glanced at Preacher who was still looking rather glum. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but hesitated. Her hand fell on to the seat instead. “I’m going to fix this, no matter what it takes,” she vowed.