The Iron Thorn

by Caitlin Kittredge

  I rose and set my mug into the wash basin, Ovaltine untasted. “That’s all? That’s all you know?”

  Bethina flushed. “I’m sorry, miss, but yes. The shadows stole your brother, and that’s the whole of it. No one here except me and the mice.”

  I wrapped my fingers around the edge of the porcelain drain board and stared at the stained tile of the countertop until the spots of water and mildew spun in front of my eyes. I started multiplying numbers, trying to keep my mind on an even keel, to hold my hopelessly jumbled thoughts at bay.

  Conrad kidnapped by viral creatures. Conrad vanished without so much as a scream. Only time to pen the note. Conrad asking me, of all people, to rescue him. The vertiginous, swirling pool of madness rushed up at me and I shut my eyes, willing the images from my dreams to retreat. Order. I needed order. I opened my eyes again, started to count tiles, my lips moving.

  “I suppose it was cowardly to shut myself up in the kitchen,” Bethina admitted. “But I wasn’t keen on swanning about with those things running loose. They might take me.”

  “No one’s going to hurt you, darlin’,” Dean said. His words were directed at Bethina, but his eyes were on me. By the time I’d reached my eightieth tile, the swimming behind my eyes had retreated and I slowly unlocked my aching hands from the edge of the drain board. I hoped that Cal, Bethina and Dean would put my episode down to worry over Conrad. I wished that I could.

  “I thank you for your kindness, even if you are a heretic,” Bethina told Dean. Dean’s eyebrow quirked.

  “Keep a razor blade under that tongue of yours, eh?”

  “I see what I see, sir.” Bethina crossed her ankles primly. In keeping with Graystone’s crumbling surroundings, her stockings had a run in them.

  “That’s it, then,” Cal said. “End of the line. Conrad’s gone and so is your pop. We’d best be hoofing it back to Lovecraft and praying that we don’t get expelled.”

  Conrad’s shaky handwriting floated through my vision, and his admonishment to me:

  Save yourself.

  “Bethina,” I said. “Did my father or Conrad ever mention anything about a book? A specific book, or perhaps a ledger?” I swallowed a lump “The … a … ‘witch’s alphabet’?”

  Dean’s head came up, as if he wanted to interject, but he kept quiet.

  Bethina frowned. “No, miss. I never heard them mention no witches. They seemed upright men, the both.”

  The fire sighed in the draft, and that was the end of Bethina’s story.

  While Cal escorted Bethina to her garret, Dean walked me back to the room where I’d recovered from the shoggoth bite. He shivered outside my door, and I didn’t think it was entirely from the winter air against his bare arms.

  “Are you all right, Dean?” I hoped the question wouldn’t wound his pride too much.

  Dean’s mouth quirked down. “I suppose, but I gotta say it—this is Weirdsville, kid. Your old man’s a spooky cat.”

  Privately, I was beginning to agree with Dean. Aloud I said, “I expect you want to get back to Lovecraft and the Rustworks. Your life.” I reached for the roll of bills I’d secreted in the top of my stocking. “How much do I owe you for being our guide?”

  Dean sucked his teeth. “This job’s a complicated bargain, true enough. More to it than blood or money.”

  “What else is there?” I rolled my stocking back over my thigh and watched Dean’s fingers curl as they followed the movement.

  “You’re a pistol, Miss Aoife. You sure you don’t belong with us down in the Rustworks instead of at that stuffy School?”

  “Oh, keep your remarks to yourself,” I said, but only half cross. He returned my small smile.

  “I figure that I brought heat on myself during that little airship adventure. Proctors might have my mug now, maybe even my name. Maybe I need some country air, until things cool off and I don’t end up down Catacombs way.” He shrugged. “Figured you might need a few more dragons slain before we settle up, princess.”

  “There are no dragons,” I said, although a part of me felt immense relief that he wasn’t leaving yet. “And no princesses.”

  Dean rolled his pack of Luckies free of his sleeve and tapped one out. “Not in this dusty old pile of bones, that’s for sure. But there’s you and there’s me, Miss Aoife. I’m calling that good enough.”

  He tucked a strand of wild hair behind my ear with his long fingers. Dean Harrison smelled of cigarettes and embers, and I breathed him in like he was all the air there was. No, Dean couldn’t leave yet. I’d never had this reaction to anyone in my life. He couldn’t go. I was beginning to realize I needed him.

  “Aoife.” Cal appeared from the direction of the landing. “Is he bothering you?”

  I took a large, guilty step in one direction and Dean backpedaled in another.

  “Not in the least. We were discussing his fee,” I said. My heartbeat was louder than thunder at the thought Cal might have been standing there for longer than a few seconds. “For being the guide.”

  “Well, I sure hope it wasn’t for his wit and charm,” Cal said. “Listen, I’m going to sack out and you should, too. We need an early start if we’re going to make the city tomorrow.”

  I felt my mouth take on its stubborn set, which usually heralded a detention or an extra essay on something like etiquette. “I’m not going back, Cal. Conrad needs me.”

  “Aoife …,” he sighed. “We’ve decided this.”

  “No.” I jabbed my finger at Cal. “You decided. My brother is kidnapped, and I’m going to help him. If you don’t want to help save your friend, then by all means, go beg the Proctors to forgive you.”

  Dean touched the back of my hand, light as a kiss. “I’m out of this conversation. Sweet dreams, kids.”

  “Please, Cal,” I said after Dean disappeared into another bedchamber. “Just sleep on it. If you still want to leave in the morning, then go, but I’ve made up my mind.” I reached for him, but he backed away. “I could use my best friend,” I whispered.

  “Aoife, you’re not being rational,” Cal said. “Conrad’s gone Builder knows where. You need to go home before your whole future is slag, and mine too. If you cared you’d listen to me.”

  “Why?” I demanded. I’d been holding my tongue all day, playing at politeness, and my frustration boiled over like a crucible left too long on a burner. “Because you’re the boy and so I must be hysterical to disagree with you? Because I’m going mad? Or”—I drew close to Cal, realizing for the first time how tall he’d become in the summer between last year and this one—“is it because you’re scared?” I demanded. “That’s it, isn’t it—you’re scared that we might find Conrad and he really will be everything they say he is in Lovecraft. That the perfect, clever Cal Daulton made a mistake in befriending him.”

  Cal’s jaw twitched, and I thrust my chin at him, daring him to yell or slap me or do anything except stand there like a boneless scarecrow.

  “You need to rest, Aoife,” he said finally. “Clearly, the events of the day have gotten your head in a muddle. You’re saying things nice girls have no business talking about.”

  “Oh, go strip your own gears!” I shouted. “I’m afraid too, Cal. I don’t want to think that Conrad is mad, but he might be! Or he might be dead, or consorting with real heretics, but I’m not turning tail!”

  “Well, forgive me if I don’t want to toss away my entire life for a guy who may or may not be leading his naive sister on the road to ruin!” Cal growled. “And forgive me for watching out for my friend!”

  “If you believe that Conrad would hurt me on purpose,” I said, matching his snarl, “then we are not friends.”

  With that, I stepped into my room and slammed the door in Cal’s startled face. I curled up on the musty bed and lay wretched and sleepless until dawn.

  The Sinister Clock

  MY MOTHER USED to help us find shapes in the clouds while we lay in Von Braun Park, pointing out unicorns and knights and the unfurling, scaly hides
of dragons.

  It wasn’t until much later that I learned you could be burned for suggesting such things existed, independent of their creation from steel, gear and steam in the laboratories of engineers. The Bureau of Heresy in Washington would accept no fantasy, no magic. Nothing that did not spring from viral infection or pure science.

  I tried to find the same shapes in the stained plaster of my bedroom ceiling while dawn light spread fingers through the blood-colored velvet drapes.

  “Coffee.” Dean kicked open my door and backed in, holding a tray made of silver and stamped in roses. In his big, rough hands it was rather ridiculous. “Found some hidden in that rat hole your pop calls a pantry. Old as the hills but brewed up strong.”

  I pulled the duvet up to my chin, as I’d taken off my filthy, destroyed uniform and not-slept in my petticoat and brassiere. “This is my room, Dean.” I didn’t want him to see me disheveled and sleep-tossed. Cal seeing me wouldn’t matter, but I had a notion it would be different with Dean.

  “And I do apologize for barging in, but I figured you’d forgive me.” He stepped over the threshold and kicked the door again to shut it.

  I felt under my pillow for my jumper and slipped it back on even though it stank to high heaven, and then rolled the coverlet down. I fluttered my hands uselessly at the tray. “Why did you bring me this … stuff?”

  Dean stared hard at me. “You skittish over something, Miss Aoife? Bad dreams? Starchy sheets?”

  “I …” I forced myself to look at Dean and not blush. “I’m not usually alone with a boy. Besides Cal. And just when we’re cramming for exams.”

  Dean spit out a laugh. “Relax, princess. It’s just coffee.”

  “I’m quite relaxed,” I said in a tone that was anything but, glancing at the lamp on the nightstand. It was a heavy Tiffany number, all glass and iron. I could bean someone with it if I had to. I didn’t think Dean would try anything, but nothing in this world was certain, and the plain truth was I barely knew him and he was close enough to embrace. “I’d hate to have to scream when you acted improperly,” I added.

  “You wouldn’t scream.” Dean poured the coffee out of the silver service into a china cup, a small and frilly porcelain bird in his hand. “You’re thinking you’d hit me with that lamp you were just eyeballing and make tracks, because you don’t need any kind of rescuing.”

  “I need it more than you could ever know.” The words slipped out and I didn’t stop them, wasn’t even aware until Dean paused, a little coffee splashing onto the leg of his dungarees.

  “Dammit.” He sat down on the foot of my bed, his bulk bowing the ancient mattress. “What’s that deep-down secret giving you sad eyes and sleepless nights, kid? You can say it’s nothing, and Cal will believe you, but not me.”

  “I …” I wrapped my fingers around the cup he handed me, suddenly chilled with the knowledge I’d said too much. “That stays a secret.” I liked Dean, probably more than I should, but I was determined to have no one visit me in bleach-scrubbed halls that smelled of antiseptic, echoing with the screams of patients whose medication couldn’t stave off their nightmares. I’d rot my days away under the eye of no one but the shadow companions birthed from my viral mind. I wouldn’t ensnare sane victims, like Nerissa had. I’d decided it the day my mother was committed permanently.

  “All right, it’s your secret. For now,” Dean said. “But we still need to settle up my payment.”

  I huddled deeper under the blankets. “I probably can’t afford your payment, Dean. I barely have any money and certainly nothing else someone … like you … would want.”

  “You’ve got that secret,” Dean said. “Someday, you’ll tell it to me. And when you do, I’ll take your secret and then it will be mine to keep instead of yours.”

  Faintly, I remembered one of Nerissa’s stories, the poor weaver girl who makes straw into gold and trades with a witch for secrets.

  “Miss Aoife?” Dean’s mouth turned down at the corners. “That secret’s my price. We got ourselves a bargain, sure and sealed?”

  Nerissa wasn’t here, and if she were she’d say nothing to help me. I was just a girl who came and listened to her stories. She no more cared if I ended up indebted to a so-called witch than if I dropped out of the Lovecraft Academy and joined a troubadour caravan.

  Though I had the sense that I was stepping over some threshold, and that by promising my secret to a boy like Dean Harrison I could never return, I stuck out my hand and pumped Dean’s once. “Yes. It’s a bargain.”

  After Dean left, I ripped back my coverlet and went rooting in the wardrobe for something to wear that wasn’t mud-encrusted and days old.

  The wardrobe stood taller than me by a head and a cloudy mirror reflected a stained and damaged Aoife back at me. Forget a new wardrobe—I needed new skin with the amount of dirt and blood I was wearing.

  Poking behind the various narrow doors of the bedroom yielded me a wash closet with a steam hob circulating heated water in the corner. It hissed like an amiable snake when I spun the tap, and delivered a helping of rusty red water into the basin.

  I found a washrag and scrubbed myself clean as I could while minding the bandage Dean had put on my shoggoth bite. He’d done a fair job, fair as I’d receive at the Academy’s infirmary, and the bite hardly hurt at all except when I pressed on it. The skin around the bandage carried a pallor, but there was no blue-veined, green-fleshed infection crawling its way through my system from the spot where the shoggoth’s kiss had landed. Dean’s skills as a field surgeon could have probably netted him legitimate work in Lovecraft, tending to victims of ghoul attacks and Proctors who fell to heretics during rioting. But imagining someone like Dean forced to march lockstep with the severe nurses and surgeons of the Black Cross, the Proctor’s medical arm, didn’t end well—he’d probably be expelled for his smoking alone before he was a week in.

  The worst of the grime fell away with the washrag when I tossed it into the now-empty basin to dry out, and I padded back to the wardrobe. Most of the clothes were for a boy, old-fashioned short trousers, a waistcoat, shirts made for celluloid collars and high leather riding boots. However, at the rear of the cabinet I found a drop-waist silk dress, and a search of its cubbies yielded a comb to twist up my hair. It still looked like a nest for Graystone’s crows, but at least it was out of my eyes. The dress gleamed ruby-wet and the comb was mother-of-pearl, glistening bone against the dark of my hair. I tried on the riding boots and found that the long-ago boy who’d inhabited the room had exceedingly small feet. The boots hugged my calves like hands.

  When the wardrobe swung shut and the mirror revealed me once again, I caught my breath.

  I looked like my mother.

  Turning from the mirror so quickly I almost fell over my own feet, I ventured into the hallway. Graystone was vast and deserted in the daylight, muted with emptiness. I wandered back along the route I’d taken to the library and the kitchen, though it was devoid of all its menace in the daytime. The sour portraits of Grayson patriarchs still glared at me from under their layer of finely aged dust in the rear parlor. I paused to read their nameplates, stern as their visages. HORNTON. BRUCE. EDMUND.

  The newest portrait’s placard read ARCHIBALD GRAYSON. I stopped. I was finally going to get to see what my father looked like. If there was anything of him in me. I stepped close, eager to take in every last brushstroke in the light.

  My father was dapper and besuited in the painting, streaks of white in otherwise dark hair at his temples and a piercing set of eyes bookended by lines the only hint he wasn’t still a young man. Spectacles on a chain marred an otherwise pristine green silk cravat and his angular cheekbones gave him a disapproving edge, rather like one of my professors. Though, unlike any of my professors, my father was handsome, albeit in a bookish way. Conrad favored him in feature if not in coloring, and after a bit looking at Archibald became too much like looking at the much older, sterner version of my brother. I moved away, back to Thornton, back d
own the line into the safety of the past.

  I didn’t look anything like Archibald. Our eyes were the same, but there the resemblance ended. It put a weight on me, one that I felt like I couldn’t shake off. I wanted so badly to ask Archibald about Nerissa, and everything that had happened. I wanted him so badly to come back and answer me. But he wouldn’t, because wishes didn’t come true, because fairy godmothers weren’t real.

  Hurrying toward the foyer, I nearly smacked into Bethina. She shied, and the tray she held spilled oatmeal and toast onto the worn carpet runner.

  “Stone and star. Forgive me, miss.” She knelt and began to scrub up the oats and tea with her apron corner.

  “My fault, really,” I said, crouching to pick up the toast. It was all heels and felt rough and stale. “You came out of the kitchen,” I observed.

  “Can’t very well leave the young miss of the house without her breakfast, can I?” Bethina sniffed. “There’s still a few things in the icebox and the root cellar. ’Sides, it’s daylight and with you three here, I figger the shadows might not find a way in, to … well, you know what I’m saying, miss.”

  She shuddered, and scrubbed harder at the rug.

  “That’s very kind of you,” I said, standing and smoothing down my new dress. Silk felt like what I imagined wearing a nightjar’s skin would, slick and cold. “Do you think you could bring my breakfast to the library?”

  Bethina wrinkled her nose. “I surely couldn’t, miss. That room gives me the creeping spooks, all up and down my back. I’ll leave it in the warming oven, should you take a notion to eat.” She pinched the back of my knee from her vantage. “And you should eat, miss. You haven’t got anything up top or on the stern for a future husband to admire. Like Mr. Harrison, for instance?”

  I sputtered at how matter-of-fact she was about the whole thing, jerking from her reach. “I … my … That’s really none of your business, Bethina.”

  “Just so, miss.”