Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures

by Sean Wallace

  The milagro bee herself, Beatrice Mosconi, slipped into the wings near me, but she did not see me, cowering as I was. She moved toward the stairs that led deeper into the theater, but did not get there. Once the pterodactyls saw her, they were upon her. Upon her and pecking at her face, her arms, any bit of her they could reach. I did not expect her to cry out – she was beeswax and mechanics, was she not? – but the sound she made was dreadful. It was the sound of a ship sinking under a weight it cannot bear. It was the sound of a thing overcome and drowning.

  I leapt from my curtain and screamed at the pterodactyls. And they, not expecting me, leapt away from Beatrice. They looked at me as if they did not know what to make of me; I was of a height with them, but lacked wings. I screamed again and waved my arms, trying to appear as large as I could.

  “Leave her alone!” I screamed at them.

  They snapped their sharp beaks at me, but hopped backwards. I stepped over Beatrice’s legs – she trying to make herself smaller, unseen – and continued to wave at the creatures. The pair of them shook their heads, as if in accord, and launched themselves back toward the ceiling, but just when I believed them gone, they returned. En masse.

  There was no fighting them, not in this number. Every strike I landed, be it on hard beak or flapping wing, seemed to do me more damage than it did them. Some of the pterodactyls were taller than me and one shouldered its way into me, knocking me to the floor. A moment later, I was in its talons, being carried away.

  We should have hit the theater ceiling – I told myself this time and again – but the bird knew where it was going. It sought the hatch it had likely entered through and we shot into the sky as if expelled from the barrel of a gun. The island spun below us and nausea closed its hard fist around my throat.

  No matter how I twisted, I could not free myself from the iron grasp of the pterodactyl that carried me. A glimpse of the buildings below us told me I probably did not want to be freed, but when I saw another pair of birds, one carrying another body, I decided that freedom was better than being taken to a place I had no desire to go. Bide your time, Murrie, J.J. would have told me and so I waited.

  Buildings do not come in hard or soft, however. If I meant to fall, I would have to take the landing as best I could. We flew west into the setting sun and here, on the city’s edge, I saw my opportunity. Awnings, which no longer reminded me of Trinchero’s mustachio but were instead cups of golden sunlight, spread out along the boardwalk, which climbed the island’s edge. Across these awnings, I saw the shadow of another pterodactyl and I looked to find Beatrice also held in one’s clawed grip. Maybe the birds meant to carry us beyond the island, maybe the birds meant to let us go once we passed the edge. Whatever it meant, I moved first.

  I bit the bird’s leg. It tasted of sweat and was strangely warm. Alive, not mechanical, and at the prick of my teeth, it squawked. It did not, however, let me go. I latched on again, chewing and clawing until I caused the creature enough discomfort that it opened its talons.

  I screamed the entire way down. I could flap my arms, but could not keep myself aloft or steer. It was luck alone that saw me fall into one of those awnings, but there I did not stay. I bounced back up, and went over the edge, head over heel until I landed in a dumpster of trash – soggy, rotten trash, which nonetheless cushioned my fall.

  A breath later, the milagro bee joined me.

  I did not move, only stared at the sunset sky above us and waited for the beasts to return. Silence, however, held, and I looked at the soprano, half buried in the trash beside me. She blinked – her eyes were the color of honey, like the theater walls – and then she dared a smile.

  “When I saw your brave escape, I knew I must try!” she said in perfect English. “They will come and we should go.”

  It startled me, that she spoke at all, but why wouldn’t she speak here, as she had spoken on stage. I had thought her programmed for the opera alone, whatever myriad of languages might be required of her, but she was not simply that. She was her own person. She was not clockwork, but neither was she entirely flesh. She was some mixture of both, looking like she might melt as the sun slanted down the alley we occupied.

  We climbed from our nest of debris and fled deeper into the alleys, trailing trash behind us.

  The west side of the island was a collection of lavish hotels and restaurants, assembled in tall stacks up the side of an artificial mountain. Awnings and umbrellas that sheltered tables fluttered in the evening’s breeze; most restaurants seemed to be doing a brisk business, and Beatrice seemed eager to keep out of the public eye. When I meant to approach a hostess and ask her assistance, Beatrice pulled me back into the alleyway.

  She kept me pressed to the side of the building with one elegant hand; she still wore her costume from the opera, yard and yards of silver organza skirts rustling as she peered into the street. I glanced to the sky, but there was no sign of the pterodactyls. Beatrice looked at me with wary eyes.

  “Trained pterodactyls?” I asked her. When she made no reply, I nodded, trying to piece the thing together in my mind. “Trinchero keeps a trio, but they’re much smaller, and why would his own creatures attack his theater, and his diva?”

  If Beatrice could blush, she did, her waxy cheeks darkening somewhat. “He would not,” she agreed, again in English.

  “They looked for you,” I said. While this idea was troubling on its own, it was more so when Beatrice nodded and leaned against the wall, as if in her own worry she could no longer stand upright without assistance.

  I leaned closer to her and plucked a cabbage leaf from the skirt of the costume she still wore. I flung the leaf into the alley. I did not know this place well, but knew what I had seen. I watched Beatrice now as she perhaps warred over what exactly to tell me.

  “Bear witness to the dueling Desdemonas,” I said before she could speak, and she offered up another nod.

  “It can only be the Falcon,” she whispered and this seemed to terrify her.

  If the conflict was something they fashioned themselves, or a battle that had been thrust upon them, I could not ask, because Beatrice’s eyes widened. Her gaze rooted itself to the end of the alley, where a vehicle sat.

  “She has found us!”

  The vehicle rose from the ground upon three wheels, slim and spoked as a bicycle’s would be, but instead of having a singular open-air seat, a canopy perched atop the wheels. Metallic wings streamed backward from the canopy – would it actually fly? The vehicle rolled toward us with a steady growl. Within the carriage, I spied one figure. Beatrice shrieked. I grabbed her by the arm before she could flee. Her skin was like fire-warmed wax beneath my fingers, though it did not melt. I tugged her toward the approaching carriage.

  The vehicle closed the distance swiftly; even had Beatrice run – and certainly she could have escaped me – she would not have gotten far. Far above us, I heard the cry of approaching pterodactyls, even as the carriage door swung open. I stared at its driver – with that dress and make-up it could be only Serafina Falco, the Falcon herself – but made no questions, pushing Beatrice up and into the cabin. She complained the entire way; I shouldered myself into her backside to propel her into a seat, then climbed in and slammed the door behind us.

  “Go! Go!”

  The driver needed no urging; the vehicle consumed the remaining length of the alley with its smooth wheels. We shot across the street and over the edge of the island, and I feared I had doomed us after all, but the wings caught the air and we were aloft! The driver banked away from the sun and up ever higher.

  We flew higher than the tallest buildings of the island, then left even those behind. The vehicle climbed up and up, until I grew short of breath and found myself gasping. By the time normal breathing had returned, we were approaching another island. This island seemed like an anchor of sorts, for a long metal line ran even further into the sky and vanished into the clouds. It was this line we followed, and were soon engulfed in shadow as the clouds thickened. Beatric
e moaned.

  The driver landed us on a platform and Beatrice bolted from the vehicle before we were fully secure. She tumbled to the platform in a tangle, picked herself up, and ran for the edge.

  “Beatrice!”

  She vanished into the clouds which spilled over the platform’s high edge. I dropped out of the vehicle and followed, hearing the click of the Falcon’s heels behind me as she pursued.

  “Oh, she must come back!” the Falcon cried after me.

  Beatrice stood on the platform’s edge, her arms spread wide. She looked very like a bird then, and not a bee, and I did not think she meant to jump, for she would have already. I opened my mouth to call her back from the edge, but it was the Falcon who spoke her name.

  “Beatrice. I thought—”

  That voice, although broken on a sob, was full of love. I looked at Serafina Falco with a kind of wonder; she was unlike anyone I had ever seen, her make-up applied with care and precision, a hundred tiny feathers drawn upon her skin, coursing outward from her eyes, up toward her raven hairline, down the proud line of her neck and into her bosom. She was painted in hues of gold and black, her eyes a sharp and piercing blue like the sky at midday, her mouth painted to a sharp point as if to mimic a falcon’s beak. A topaz-encrusted headdress was secured into her raven locks, coming to a point at her widow’s peak, leaving a singular golden topaz to rest at the bridge of her nose.

  Serafina offered a hand, strong and steady, and to my surprise Beatrice turned to take it. She grasped the hand and wrenched Serafina to her side, and now they both stood on the platform’s edge, struggling. Beatrice’s face creased with momentary confusion – she looked at Serafina as if she didn’t know what to do. Serafina’s arm came around Beatrice in a hard hug.

  “I thought you were dead,” Serafina whispered.

  They were each great actors in their mighty theaters, but this I knew was genuine grief and emotion. The sob that wracked Serafina, the anguish on Beatrice’s face. Beatrice let go of Serafina’s hand, and Serafina slid to her knees, still crushing Beatrice in a hug around her legs. Beatrice’s fingers slid into Serafina’s hair and pulled.

  To my surprise, the raven hair and the topaz headdress came away, revealing a bald cap beneath. Serafina did not withdraw, but only looked up at Beatrice with a kind of wonder. I watched, not understanding.

  “He has made you into something you were not prepared to be,” Serafina said. “Come back from this edge and let us talk.”

  “Beatrice,” I implored her.

  Beatrice looked at me and laughed softly. “Little woman,” she said. “I have not seen anyone like you before and you have never seen anyone like us.” She gave Serafina’s wig a shake. “The bee and the falcon. Two Desdemonas when there should be only one. He meant for there to be only one.”

  The wind picked up and Serafina came to her feet, tugging a more willing Beatrice away from the edge. Serafina guided us along the platform to a hatch, and inside what appeared to be a maintenance room. Still, there was a stove where we warmed ourselves and where Serafina made us tea. It should have been strange, but I drank, and held my cup out when Serafina offered a drop of whiskey.

  They spoke in hushed tones of the conflict they had endured for the past year – had it been that long, Beatrice wondered, and looked concerned that it had been. The incidents had been relatively minor until recently: it had begun with hijinks involving make-up, and costumes, seams frayed or sewn too tightly; it escalated with false reports in the press about the personal lives of each diva, foolish stories of liaisons, drug addictions and scandalously poor behavior in public places.

  The incident that had terrified Beatrice so badly was an evening after a performance, where she found herself trapped below the theater stage and stalked by a person who never revealed themselves, but who had sounded very like Serafina. Husky, male.

  “It was never you, Falco,” Beatrice said.

  Serafina carefully set the bottle of whiskey onto the table between us and shook her head. Without the wig, I could see the strong lines of her face, could see the bobbing Adam’s apple in her throat, and take note of her broader shoulders.

  “It was not me. And now, Alves will know you are not dead,” Serafina said. “His birds were made to bring you back to the Teatro de la Luz, and when they do not, he will seek you again.”

  My mind raced and my hands shook, so I took another swallow of whiskey-laden tea. “The Rocha was brought down,” I said as I tried to lay each of the facts out as I knew them. The idea of the ship plummeting out of control made my heart pound hard. I had survived it, but the memory held me tight, disturbing. “We carried Beatrice with us – I thought she was dead.”

  “Alves thought she was dead,” Serafina said, “and when he discovered that Trinchero had brought her back . . .” There was a hitch in her voice and she covered her painted mouth with a hand as she gathered her courage back up. “He was furious. We have always . . .” She considered. Beatrice picked up the story when Serafina could not.

  “Once upon a time,” she said, “two beautiful divas called Valle del Cielo home. They were each wholly unique, their kind and beauty unknown in the earth-bound cities. But in the sky, they were magical. Talented. And mindful of their secrets. The first diva, the milagro bee, was truly a miracle. She should have died as a young woman, but did not. She suffered a terrible attack which did not kill her, but only changed her into a thing she could not explain.”

  Beatrice extended her arm to us and drew back the long glove she wore. In the crook of her elbow, we could see the gleam of metal. There was no line where the skin stopped and the metal began. Her neck showed such a line, where the cogs within her throat were exposed; an imperfect blend of biology and mechanics, made by well-meaning hands rather than nature herself.

  “Trinchero found her. Saved her. Made her into . . . something that could live, in any case.” Beatrice rolled her glove back up. “And she sang. She thought she loved it best of all.”

  “The second diva,” Serafina said, “was not fully a diva, nor had she ever been. She had remade herself with her own hands, never feeling quite right in her masculine skin. Amid the theaters, she felt perfectly at home – the performers never gave her a second or curious glance. It was as if she had discovered her true family at long last. A patron came calling – a patron who, once having learned them, swore to tell her secrets if she did not fill the theater to overflowing each night. The public loved each woman and clamored for more.”

  “Alves,” I said, the last puzzle piece snapping into place. “A battle between patrons and not divas at all – thus the dual productions of Otello.”

  “Yes,” Beatrice said, “but I was made to think it was Serafina all along. I played into Alves’s hand so perfectly.”

  “No more,” I said.

  Each diva looked at me and though I still questioned what I found myself in the middle of, I knew how we had to proceed.

  Of all the things I have learned in my travels, the most difficult has been to trust myself. This ability was not gifted by J. J.’s hands, nor did anyone else simply hand it to me. Would that it were so easy. Learning to trust the inner workings of myself – be it mind or heart or gut – has been the strangest journey of all.

  Who was I to say what Beatrice and Serafina must do? Their paths were not my own, this is true enough, but I had seen the look in Trinchero’s eyes when he thought he would lose Beatrice in her coffin. And I had seen the same fire within Alves’s eyes when he confronted Trinchero. These men would not let go and these women would suffer for it. How many times had Beatrice been brought back to life? How many times had Serafina cowered under the clothing she feared would be torn from her? This was not living, least not on their terms.

  Each looked at me expectantly.

  “We can do but one thing: attend your performance, Serafina, and see what comes. Neither Alves nor Trinchero will expect such a bold move. They will expect us to cower and we will do no such thing.”

 
“Alves will have her killed,” Serafina objected.

  I thought Serafina clutched Beatrice’s hand, but I saw that it was rather the opposite; the milagro bee held tight to Serafina, metallic hands clasped around flesh and bone. If Beatrice still had a mind of her own and not one Trinchero had made of wire and cogs, it was a mind that wanted everything Serafina had. I could see this upon her face as plain as day. As much as Serafina longed to be perfect, Beatrice longed to be flesh and bone.

  Teatro de la Luz was glowing that night. We did not approach Trinchero or his theater – we left him to his own devices, to see what might develop. We arrived in clothes that were not our own, but costumes appropriated from Teatro Milagro. Neither of us looked like ourselves; Serafina had made Beatrice into a beautiful matron, a sweeping crown of sugar-floss hair coiled atop her head, braids and beads dripping down the high chiffon collar of her ebon gown. Her face was a fine mimicry of a portrait kept backstage; wrinkles and spots courtesy of carefully applied make-up and brushes.

  Serafina had transformed my face too, making me into a girl that resembled Beatrice’s granddaughter and not someone who was a widow. My hair was braided into its own lofty crown, tied with white ribbons that echoed the frothy gown she had spilled me into. I had never felt so lovely or mysterious; no one knew us as we took our balcony seats. This was a distinct advantage of the island city: people came from the world over, strangers all, and could move as they pleased.

  The theater was taut with tension, or perhaps it only seemed so to me, because we were waiting for doom to befall us. This theater, not built by Alves, but decorated by him, was not quite so lavish as Trinchero’s, but had its own charm. The walls were rough wood, painted with pale and sunlit clouds to echo the sky outside. Occasionally, there was the image of a bird in flight, or perhaps it was a natural whorl within the wood. I counted falcons within those clouds, too, surely for Serafina. The stage was illuminated by a crescent of gas lights, while the balconies were lighted by chandeliers that dripped with candles so white they put my gown to shame. I felt illuminated beneath them, glowing.