Lumière (The Illumination Paradox)

by Garlick, Jacqueline E.

  “Get the others and meet us in the kitchen, will you?” he tells Iris.

  Her eyes grow big as teacups.

  “It’s all right,” he assures her. “Eyelet knows. I’ve told her everything.”

  An expression of unmistakable relief comes over Iris’s face, followed by her first genuine smile.

  “We’ll meet you upstairs in a bit,” he says, grabbing me by the hand. “Come on,” he says, skipping forward. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for more surprises from you.” I stumble along behind him up the dark tunnel corridor, toward his lab. He stops, pulls me close, his eyes soft in the torchlight. “I doubt this one will surprise you.” He smiles.

  I’d like to stay in this moment, but he bounces away, linked to me only by the fingers of our threaded hands. Seconds later we arrive at the scaffold stairs that lead to his laboratory.

  He trips the stairs and they begin to descend noisily.

  “It can’t be possibly be down here—I looked everywhere,” I say.

  “Oh, not everywhere.” He grins. “But you were close.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A certain Bertie told me.”

  “Who?”

  “Bertie”—he flips his chin—“my hydrocycle.”

  “You’ve given your cycle a name?”

  “What of it?” He tugs his waistcoat.

  “Nothing.”

  I bring a hand to my mouth to hide the giggle that bubbles up inside of me as the stairs rattle down to rest on the floor.

  Jumping from the treads, he pulls me to the left, around a corner to the back of the room, toward the curtain. “Traitor,” I say, as we pass the hydrocycle. It rumbles beneath its tarp.

  “You stay here,” Urlick announces, twirling me around. “And close your eyes. Tight.”

  “I thought the plan was no more keeping secrets.”

  “No more secrets, I promise.” He pushes a finger to my lips. “But I never said anything about surprises.”

  Reluctantly, I close my eyes.

  His breath pulses a warm trail across the hollow of my neck, he stands so close. My skin flares.

  “When I drop the drape, you may open your eyes,” he whispers.

  “How will I know when you’ve dropped it if I’m not allowed to look?”

  “You’re ears still work, don’t they?” His breathy voice sends a chill down my spine, prickling the hairs on my arms. I bite my lip; my pulse races at the excitement welling up inside me.

  He turns and sashays across the room, and I envision his lithe and gentle movement. He runs a hand down the curtain and the hairs on my neck pull to attention.

  “Don’t peek now.”

  “I’m not.”

  His head ducks out from behind the curtain, red velvet crushed up around his chin.

  “I can see you peeking.”

  Caught, I pinch my eyes shut.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Ready.”

  His shoes clatter across the floor behind the curtain and then, with the rip of a cord the curtains drop, plopping into a puddle on the floor. My eyes spring open as behind it stands…

  Absolutely nothing.

  “Is this a joke?” My hands land on my hips.

  He smirks and trips a button on a cord in his hand. A spin of turbines gives way to a creak of gears, and the pattern in the floor breaks apart, shifting and moving into a series of plates. Slowly, they shuffle to one side or the other, exposing a giant dark hole. Drawing back, the plates disappear one by one beneath the floor. In their place, a platform rises up. On top of the platform sits the Illuminator, shimmering in the aether light of the room.

  I gasp at its appearance, drawing my hands to my face. Tears press at my lids. The glass and wood cabinet housing the giant spinning glass disks; the snaggled wires that run from the cabinet to the mighty glass Crookes tube, resting in its brass stand next to it. I stare up at all the pieces of the machine, remembering the path of the lightning as it jumped from the wires to the long needle-nose tip of the Crookes tube in its stand. The mighty flash as the arc hit the glass. The smell of the wires as they crackled and sizzled. The whir of the glass disks as they spun inside the cabinet with such force, I swore they’d break loose.

  I step toward it, remembering the acrid smell of my father’s laboratory as we descended the stairs. The bite of the cold metal gurney against my back. The spiders. There were so many spiders. The sound of the wires as they crackled and popped. The sizzle of the current jumping between the big brass conductor bars mounted to the front. How afraid I was that I’d be electrocuted.

  “Well?” Urlick’s hands fly up from his sides, the Illuminator towering at his back. “Is it as you remember?”

  I don’t answer; I’m still deep in thought.

  “Is this the machine your father invented? The one you were talking about?”

  My father’s words come rushing back to me, from that day long ago in his lab. The two of us, alone, preparing to shoot a picture of me. The only one he ever took.

  “You must hold completely still, do you understand? You can hold still for me, can’t you?” he smiled, and I remember the fear in his eyes.

  I must have nodded with mine, because the next thing I remember he was turning the crank. The noise of it made my innards squirm. The more he turned it, the closer the needle-nosed tip of the Crookes tube came to my head, closing in on me like the stinger of a bee. “Must I smile?” I remember asking as his shoes whisked away, falling silent at the back of the machine.

  “No, darling,” he said. “Just hold perfectly still.”

  And I did. And that’s when the walls came alive with green lightning streaks, crawling the walls of his laboratory like the legs of a hundred erratic green spiders. I remember wanting to cry.

  Giant glass plates then began to whirl inside cabinets. Friction vibrated the room. Wires popped. Circuits crackled. The smell of burnt sulfur shifted to that of burning bread.

  “Do you smell that?” I remember asking my father.

  “Smell what?” Father shouted over the chaos.

  “The bread,” I shouted back. “You’re burning it.”

  It was the first time I ever remember feeling the silver rise in my veins, knowing the smell of burning bread was connected.

  But my father knew. He fell on the wheel, cranking it ever faster until the ominous green glow filled the room. Arcs of green lightning sliced the walls and darted across the ceiling, and then—there was a flash. A plume of light so bright it blinded me, illuminating even the darkness I’d been dragged into by the episode I’d fallen under.

  “Well, is it?” Urlick interrupts my reverie.

  “Yes,” I finally say. I step forward, running a hand over its lens. “But it seems to have shrunk since I saw it last.”

  Urlick laughs.

  “You know how things are, when you’re a child you seem to remember things bigger than they really are.” I eye it to be about twice my five-foot-five height. I suppose to a child of five years, maybe six, that would seem large.

  “For some reason I thought you’d be happier to see this.” He scowls, his enthusiasm reduced now to a smoldering frown.

  “I am,” I say, trying to reassure him. “I’m delighted really.” But really, I’m not. I circle the machine, running my fingers over the Crookes tube, emotions running hot inside me. All my life I’ve longed for this moment, believing if only I could unearth my father’s machine, I’d at last have the chance at a normal life. But now, as I stand in the presence of it, a part of me is afraid to have found it. What if it doesn’t work? What if it doesn’t cure me? What then? What if it’s all just been a lie? Without the dream of the Illuminator curing me, I have nothing left. No other way to fix myself.

  It has to work.

  “You all right?” Urlick steps toward me.

  “I’m fine,” I lie, then change the subject. “I just realized I’ve never asked: what exactly do you intend
to do with the machine?”

  He drops his gaze. “I intend to fix things with it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like me.” He scowls.

  “I beg your pardon?” I blink, not believing what I’m hearing. What exactly does he mean by ‘fixing’ him?

  “Don’t play stupid with me. You know exactly what I intend to do.”

  And then it hits me...I’d been so focused on my own needs, I’d forgotten to look outside myself. The carnie’s words that day at the carnival flood over me, reciting the Illuminator’s other list of “uses.” Removes scars, pits, blemishes. Unsightly birthmarks, consider them zapped. He’s not thinking. He can’t be thinking of exposing himself to the light for that.

  “Tell me you’re not serious,” I gasp aloud.

  Urlick throws me a dark look. “Would you deny me the opportunity to rid myself of these hideous marks, the chance to live a normal life?”

  “No, that’s not it—”

  “How dare you, knowing full well all the things the machine can do!” He glares at me through slatted eyes.

  “But that’s just it, it can’t. It’s a lie—”

  “How dare you say such a thing! You’d rather me remain a freak, unable to face the world without persecution?”

  “No, of course not!” I shake my head. Then shake it again, horrified at the thought of confirming him as a freak. “That’s not it. It’s none of that!”

  I stand there gasping, staring, not knowing how to say I like him the way he is. I’ve never thought of Urlick needing to “fixed” before now. I’d grown to think of him as perfect.

  “I should have known you wouldn’t understand.” He storms past me, then turns back. “How could you? Perfect as you are!”

  My lips part. If only he knew.

  I should tell him, I should let him know the truth. But I can’t. “Wait!” I chase after him, my hand falling softly on his back.

  He hesitates, turning to face me, pink eyes glistening.

  “Those things they say the machine can do. I’m not sure they’re true. They are not the reason my father built it—”

  “Then what is?”

  I turn away, a million thoughts running through my head. If I tell him the reason, I’ll have to explain my secret. And if I do, there’s a chance he’ll think me Mad. “My father designed it to look inside of things,” is all I say. “Not to zap things with.”

  “How do you know that?” he snaps. His eyes are mean.

  “I just do. All those other claims were made by the carnival carnies that were paid to peddle the prototype.”

  “What?”

  “Mini-Illuminators. Prototypes. My father was commissioned by the Academy to make a dozen of them, to be sold to the public. For fundraising purposes. It was the brainchild of a professor at the Academy named Smrt. The idea was to raise funds for cathode-ray research and bring awareness of its wonders to the community. My father was against the idea. But he lost out. In the end, the prototypes were sold, as well as the main machine.”

  Urlick drops his head.

  “There is no solid science to back the carnies’ claims, Urlick. There never was. It was all just a farce to raise money.”

  “You’re lying.” His chin snaps up. “You just don’t want to see me cured!”

  “Why would I do such a thing?”

  His lip quivers as he considers it a moment.

  I continue, gently. “I’m only telling you this because I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “What happened to the prototypes?” he snaps. “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Why?”

  “Then how do you know they’re not capable of doing what they said they did?”

  I go to speak, then shut my mouth.

  “Don’t you see?” His voice shakes. “This machine is my only hope.”

  His words cut deep into my skin, oozing like blood into my soul. I know what it is to hold out such hope. More than he will ever know.

  “Does it work?” I ask.

  “No. I can’t seem to get it to run. I’ve tried everything. It’s as if something’s missing.” He turns and strokes the side of the cabinet.

  “You’re right. Something is missing.” I walk past him to the front of the machine, tapping the pewter lid of one of the glass containers perched on either side of the cabinet. “You’ve no silver dust. I pluck the container from its perch and toss it to him. “This should not be empty. And neither should this.” I tap the second one. “Without these, nothing works. That much I know. You need fairy petrol or your plans are nixed.”

  “Fairy petrol?”

  “Yes, that’s what my father called it. The powder that goes inside of these. When the powder’s stimulated, an arc jumps between those two brass bolts, mounted on either side of the front of the frame”—I point to them—“creating a charge like a lightning bolt that then jumps to that Crookes tube over there.” He looks. “Without a Crookes tube to jump to, the whole thing’s euchred. And without silver powder, you can’t even get started.”

  “How would you know?” His brows arch. I know he knows I have more to share. “You’ve witnessed this?” he pushes.

  I swallow, realizing my mistake. I must answer him in a way that doesn’t broach the truth. Which I’m not yet prepared to share.

  “Sort of,” I hedge, biting my lip, as I think. “I saw prototypes demonstrated at a carnival once,” I blurt. “I would think their working principles are the same, wouldn’t you?” His brows furrow. “It was actually quite frightening.” I keep talking, hoping to divert his suspicions. “Everything within twenty meters of the machine glowed an eerie shade of green. Even Mrs. Benson, the carnie’s assistant, glowed green—and her eyes glowed red.”

  “Really?” His brows perch.

  “Yes, even after the picture was taken. She didn’t stop glowing for quite some time.”

  I see the muscles at the sides of his jaw churn furiously. I’m not sure he believes me. “This so-called fairy petrol, where do we get some?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know.”

  He throws me a look.

  “Fairy petrol’s just what my father and I called it. I don’t know its real name.”

  “Fantastic.” He turns his back again. “That ought to be easy to order at the mercantile. One sack of fairy petrol please.” He reaches out, replacing the canister on its perch. “I was a fool to think I could ever get this thing up and running.” He runs a frustrated hand over the white dash in his hair. White on white—such a strange combination. “You’re sure you’ve no idea?” He looks to me.

  “Well, there is one place we could look for an answer.” I swallow.

  “Go on.”

  “But I’d have to be able to trust you, implicitly.”

  “And you don’t, yet?” His brows rise.

  “I mean, I’d have to know we were in this together. That whatever happens, we’d both be responsible for it. And you’d have to promise me that if either of our safeties were in jeopardy we’d stop what we were doing immediately. And that we won’t use my father’s science for other than what was intended.”

  “But that doesn’t include—” he looks worried.

  “With the exception of trying to remove the marks from your face, but no other.”

  He brightens.

  “Have we a deal?”

  Urlick moves toward me, placing his hand in mine and giving it a firm shake. “Deal,” he says.

  “My father. He kept journals. Scientific ones. Detailed entries of the work he did with this machine. Whatever fairy petrol is, it’s sure to be outlined inside his journal. That, and specific instructions on how to operate it.”

  “Where are these journals?”

  “Well, that’s the tricky bit.” I bite my lip, and stare at my shoes. “Somewhere back at the Academy.”

  “Somewhere?” His brows rise.

  “Yes. I’m afraid I don’t know where, but if you’re willing to go back with
me to Brethren, perhaps together—”

  Urlick pulls me in, hugging me like he did Iris earlier, minus the kiss. “We’ll leave as soon as the Vapours retreat.”

  Twenty six

  Eyelet

  “Excuse me, Sir.”

  Urlick tosses me aside, startled by the new voice in the room. At the side of the curtain stands the man with no arms, only legs—the one from the tunnel off Urlick’s father’s room.

  I can’t help it: I gasp at the sight of him.

  “Sorry, Mum, din’ mean to intrude.” He tips his head. His eyes are painfully crossed. ”It’s Miss Iris,” he rolls his toes together, “she’s asked me to come down ’ere ’n fetch ya’s. Says to tell ya the soup’s gettin’ cold.” His S’s whistle through the spaces in his rotted teeth.

  “Eyelet, this is Crazy Legs. Crazy Legs, this is Eyelet.” Urlick’s hand sweeps between us both. “I’d hoped for you to meet in the kitchen, but—”

  “Pleased t’ meet you, Mum.” Crazy Legs bows his head to me, bringing a dramatic hand—foot—to his chest, as if I were royalty, then holds a foot in the air for me to shake like a hand.

  My heart skips a beat. I flush, not wanting to take it, then finally accept, warily, feeling horridly guilty. It’s warm and dry, much like a hand, though I don’t know what else I was expecting. His grip is mighty, nothing at all like Flossie’s floppy palm. It almost makes me laugh. “Pleased to meet you,” I say with a shiver, marveling at how balanced he is, standing on only one leg.

  “Oh, the pleasure’s all mine, believe me Mum.” He grins, a dubious twinkle in his eye. “You can call me C.L.,” he adds. “All me friends do.”

  I can’t help myself: I laugh just a little.

  He grins again and I grin, too. ”I feel really bad for running away from you earlier.”

  “Nonsense, Mum.” He waves my words away. “Not like it hasn’t happened before. Oh, and”—he nods toward the staircase—“Cordelia says to tell you she’s right sorry for scaring y’ away. She feels right badly about it, Mum.”

  Something stirs on the stairs, like a mouse, only bigger. My eyes track the sound. A little girl appears from behind the chain rail, her eyes as round and blue as planets. Long scarlet hair falls in crisp curls around her hips. It’s the girl from the hidden room, the one who suffered an episode. She’s all dressed in white, like an angel, an emerald bow in her hair. She blinks innocently, looking up at Urlick, like she’s waiting for permission to join us.