Cogs in Time Volume Three (The Steamworks Series Book 3)

by Catherine Stovall

  In her early childhood, she had loved trips up to the market with her father on the airship. Being poor made any kind of shopping trip a rare luxury, even if it was to sort through mounds of other peoples’ trash and leftovers. From those adventures had come her greatest joy—a remarkable ability to find and restore the loveliest things, resurrecting the broken and giving it new life.

  Danni knew that part of her longed to fix anything her hands touched because of her own fragmented life. Her mother had abandoned her when she had been only three, leaving her father to raise her as best as he could. Jim O’Shae had done a wonderful job of being mom and dad to a budding young lady. Without him, she knew she would have never survived the trials and tribulations of youth to marry the only man her heart would ever know, Michael Goodfellow.

  However, that light had been taken from her life all too soon. Two years after they had wed, Michael had been consumed by a strange disease, which had come on quickly and had taken him too soon.

  Danni remembered those days with a cold bitterness that made her shy away from happiness. The loneliness was nearly unbearable with him gone, but she tried for his sake not to drown herself in work. Michael had known her better than she had ever known herself, and in the final days of his sickness, he had chided her when she’d returned to his side one night with bloodied and bleeding fingers.

  “No matter how many things you repair, Danni, you can’t fix what’s broken inside. Stay with me. Don’t go off to your workroom and hide from the one thing you cannot make new again. I’m ready to go in peace, but only with you by my side.”

  Danni had loved and hated him for his words. Their simple but biting truth had struck her heart and soul. She had stayed with him that night and the next. Tears never ceasing to fall, she had held his hand and whispered choked and tearful goodbyes as he’d closed his eyes and passed on from her world.

  At twenty-five, Danni started all over again, but Michael’s words still lingered. She was still trying to fix the broken little girl inside. The only stability in her life was her shop, Beloved Again, and her love of trinkets and treasures. Zoning her mind back from those bad days, she mopped strands of damp blond hair from the edges of her face and blinked the threatening tears from her stormy blue eyes.

  The unshed tears caused her vision to glimmer, and she swore the distortion could be the only explanation for what she saw. On a table laden with silk scarves, bottled potions, strange dolls, and dried animal paws, a box shined as if it were a beacon.

  With a swipe of her hand, Danni cleared away the tears and reached forward. Just as her fingertips brushed against the gold filigree forming intricate flourishes over dark mahogany, a woman spoke.

  “It is beautiful, is it not?”

  Danni managed to give a silent nod as she took in the woman’s odd appearance. Dressed in multi-colored skirts and a bright white blouse, her dark skin was a deep contrast to the vibrant shades she wore. A scarf the color of the summer sky had been wrapped around her head, causing ebony curls to cascade wildly from the top.

  “Tis a perfect trinket box for a lady like yourself,” the woman insisted as she leaned a little further over the table. Her dark eyes seemed to twinkle with mirth, as if all the world was a joke, and only she knew the punch line.

  “Oh, no.” Danni gave a slight shake of her head to clear her muddled thoughts. “I’m not looking for myself. I own a shop in Wren, and I come here to buy things that need just a little fixing, so I can repair them and put them up for sale.” Holding out her hands, she showed the woman the ragged nails and scratches from her time at the workbench. “No real need for trinkets here.”

  “A lover of things unloved, eh? Tis a woman after my own dear heart that shows compassion to the things cast aside by others. But, look here. Let Madame Odessa show you the secret of this little box.”

  Danni barely held back her gasp of surprise. Odessa Simmons was certainly one of Wren City’s well-known residents. A voodessa of the most powerful kind, and newly rich by strange circumstance, it was shocking to find the woman still hocking goods at the Sky Market penny tables.

  “Madame O,” Danni curtsied, “it is a pleasure to at last make your acquaintance.”

  The little woman turned, box in hand, and observed Danni with a sharp eye. “None of that formality. Give me back that young woman with a spark in her eye and fire on her tongue. I’m no one special.”

  Danni blinked her wide eyes and stared in mute astonishment.

  “Now, this. . .” Odessa patted the intricately decorated lid, “this is special.” With a practiced flourish of a woman who’d spent her life entertaining the public, she gave three quick twist of a bronze key at the side of the box and opened the lid.

  Danni put her fingers to her lips, parted in delight and curled with a smile. A hypnotic tune rose from the box, filling the warm afternoon air. The sun glinted off the metal cylinder as it turned brushing its tiny nodules against the teeth of the bronze comb, resulting in a hauntingly beautiful song.

  “That is truly magnificent.” Danni studied every aspect of the music box. Her eyes scanned from the hand-painted birds and trees on the inside of the lid, to the obviously hand-carved ivory filigree decorating the rich mahogany, and back to the polished bronze mechanism. An overwhelming desire to hold it, to possess it, and to study its every aspect in the confines of her workroom came over her.

  “I have never seen, nor heard, such beauty in a mere box. Odessa, may I call you that? Tis no matter, I shall call you Queen of Wren, if you but answer one question. How is such a creation possible? I have seen dirigibles, automatons, modern miracles of clockwork and steam. I have even seen other music boxes, but that sound, I feel this must be magic.”

  “The magic is not mine to claim. It is your own that has awakened this creation’s soul.”

  Danni, lost in the sound of each tiny note striking her heart and resonating inside her, did not respond. The music seemed to rise up and capture her in a warm embrace, rocking her gently as if she were a child. The song slowed, the notes tinkling out in separate chimes rather than a melody, and the cylinder came to a rest. Silence deafened Danni’s ears, and the noise of the market rushed back in.

  Madame Odessa watched her, the mischievous twinkle in her dark eyes nearly as bright as the sun. “I’ll just wrap this up for you.”

  “Oh, no,” Danni protested. “I could never afford . . . well, I might . . . . You didn’t tell me the price. On a widow’s budget, even with the shop—”

  “Nonsense,” Odessa interjected. “Stop all that blabbering. I do not come to this market to sell my wares. I come so that lost things can find their way home. You found me only because your heart was seeking this,” she held up the music box, “and it was seeking you, Danni Goodfellow.”

  “Wait, I never told you . . . . How do you know my name?”

  With a raucous laugh, Odessa turned away and began to wrap the music box in a parcel. “I am Odessa Simmonds, daughter of Maverick Simmonds, granddaughter of Eleanor Simmonds, great granddaughter of Chesterfield Simmonds, great-great-granddaughter of Magnus Magellian Simmonds, and guide and medium for the dead.”

  The package complete, she turned, locking her gaze on Danni. For a brief moment, her dark eyes turned as cold and hard as obsidian, and her voice ceased to hold the tone of amusement she’d had before. “I know many things, Mrs. Goodfellow.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to offend.”

  Before she could continue her apology, argue, or refuse the gift, Odessa shoved the package into her hands. “Danni Goodfellow, stop confessing your sincere regrets. You are here because you are meant to be. Now, if you want to catch the two o’clock ship back down, you had best be on your way. Goodbye, Danni dear, I am sure we will meet again soon.”

  In a daze, Danni nodded and whispered goodbye.

  Turning away, she thought she heard Odessa whisper, “Michael, I hope you have chosen correctly.”

  But when she turned back around, the crowd swarmed between
her and the stall, and she couldn’t make herself care that the woman had spoken her husband’s name. There were dozens of Michaels in Wren City alone. A coincidence, that is all.

  Danni made her way back to the boarding station from the main thoroughfare. She didn’t even notice the mortech that took her return ticket stub. It’s too smooth skin, too bright eyes, doll-like hair, and clicking whir of gears designed to look as close to human as possible would normally have made Danni cringe. Instead, she clutched the package to her chest and aimlessly wandered onboard the ship without as much as a glance at the automaton.

  The crowded lower deck of the mighty airship did not faze her, and the jostling, boisterous voices never broke through her thoughts on the strange encounter. The same eerily peaceful feeling kept her cocooned in its spell as she exited the airship, hired a rig, and rode back to her shop. Her hands gripped her precious cargo as if she were afraid to lose it until she was safely able to place it on her workshop desk.

  The bell over the shop door rang as a young woman entered, and the trip to the Sky Market was quickly forgotten as Danni went about her day.

  Danni’s eyes opened to the pitch darkness of her room, and for a moment, she held her breath and listened. She waited until her ears rang from the silence echoing back to her, positive some sound had awakened her. With a heavy exhale, she pulled her covers up, and turned over. Sinking back into the comforting arms of sleep, she closed her eyes once more. As she lingered in that place just between slumber and wakefulness, she heard the sound once more.

  Scrunching her eyes shut tight, she tried to decipher what it was. Gears turning, her mind whispered. Cogs grinding. The thoughts sent something more than fear racing through her body—a premonition of something dangerous. The chills and trembling began and tears burned at the back of her eyes.

  Paralyzed, Danni tried to convince herself it was anything but the mechanical noise of some automaton gone wrong. The moritechs were in use all throughout the city. She hated having to face them. Their doll hair, strange skin, glassy eyes, and odd movements terrified her. She’d always feared that, someday, they’d rise against the citizens of Wren City in a revolt of machine against man.

  She tried to believe it was the grandfather clock in the hall, its age and lack of upkeep causing the mechanisms to grind, but when the sound suddenly stopped, she knew it could not be that. The noise had been too faint to have come from so close to her room. It would have had to come from the parlor or the shop below.

  Another sound came, just the slightest ting, like a spoon tapping against crystal. Danni uttered something of a mixture between a curse and a whimper while burying her face in her pillow.

  Stop it, Danni, she told herself, trying to regain her bravery. This is nothing. Just the house making noises. Meeting Madame Odessa has spooked you. That is all.

  Another ting chirped out, and then another. The sound was unmistakable. “The music box.” She had whispered the words, but to Danni, they sounded as loud as a musket blast.

  The morose melody began to play, filling the house with its chilling tune. In the daylight, with Odessa’s smiling face looking up at her and the sunlight beaming down, the music had been beautiful and charming. In the dark hours of the night, it became haunting.

  Danni tossed the covers back and leapt from bed, the cold of the wooden floors sending a shiver up her spine. “Bloody looters,” she growled, sure someone had broken into her shop and was tampering with the box. Anger making her fearless, she shoved her arms into her dressing gown rather roughly, strode to her vanity, and grabbed her pistol from the top drawer. With another grumble, she pulled back the hammer, yanked open the door, and froze.

  What should have been the hallway had become a forest. Thick brambles and tall trees stretched out before her. The moon above was full, and the grass below shined with the first glistening drops of dew.

  On the exhale of a breath, Danni murmured, “What in the name of—?”

  When nothing but the sound of crickets and the never-ending song answered, she turned back to the interior of the room. However, as she spun, the room faded away and a large clearing appeared. Trees and briars formed a crude circle around her, as if caging her in. The meadow was empty, except for a large oak tree at its middle. The moonlight shined down upon it, turning its bark silver in the light.

  The cool breeze smelled of earthy things as it lifted tendrils of her hair, bringing cold chills up her arms, and the night seemed to grow even darker. Danni inched forward, step by excruciatingly slow step, her eyes locked on the blackened hole at the center of the tree trunk. Somehow, the music that pounded against her brain seemed to rise up from that pit within the tree’s center.

  On and on, the tune played, louder the nearer she came to the oak. Only steps away, Danni leaned closer, peering into the darkness. A mouth, the damnable hole looks like a mouth. Distracted by the thought, she was caught off guard by the shadow of something shifting in the darkness within—something large and unidentifiable.

  Her feet tangled as she stumbled backward, tripped, and landed on the wet grass with a loud, “Umph.”

  As if in answer, a hissing sound rose above the song, loud and clear. Danni scrambled backward like a crab in the sand, tangling her long locks as they were caught beneath her palms and around her arms.

  She fell backward, her head smacking on the ground once more. The dew-covered grass was as hard as the wooden floor of her room, and the impact shook her brain. “It’s only a dream. Only a dream. Wake up. Damnit. Wake up.” No matter how much she cried out against the dream, the pain certainly felt real.

  Danni shut her eyes tight against the stars that danced across her vision. The hissing ceased, and the music seemed to slow, the volume still deafening, but the notes coming at a slower pace. Still, she refused to open her eyes.

  The cold of the metal gave her resolve, and she opened her eyes as the final tink of the music echoed all around the clearing. Her gaze locked to the hole in the tree, and when the thing inside moved again, Danni squeezed the derringer’s trigger. The rapid fire of the four barrels unloaded in loud pops. She felt the grind of the inner gears as they pushed the speed loader up from the grip, and fresh bullets filled the chambers. Again, she squeezed the trigger.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  The world around her shimmered and shifted, the spin of it making her stomach churn. The colors of the trees, the dark of the sky, and the white of the sparkling stars bled together. Danni stumbled to her feet, swaying with disorientation as the vertigo set in. Panic drove her forward, and then back, trying to search for something, anything, to grip onto as the world seemed to fade away.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  She jerked, looking down at her hand. The gun still hung loosely in her fingertips, unfired since she’d shot toward the tree. Her fear-addled brain took a moment to realize that the sound had been heavier, more solid than gunfire.

  Her eyes flew open, and Danni shot upward, full of confusion and fear. The brightness of the room seemed strange, almost foreign, as she looked around her. Her heart slowed and her breathing calmed, realizing she was in her bed, tangled in a mass of covers, and quite safe. Falling back onto her pillows, she half-sighed and half-laughed at the ridiculousness of the nightmare.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The noise made her jump and squeak before it dawned on her that it must be late morning, well past time to open the shop, and someone was banging on her door.

  “Widow Goodfellow? Are you in there? Widow Goodfellow?”

  With a groan, for the title as much as for her lateness, Danni leapt out of the bed, grabbed up her dressing gown, and started toward the door. She paused, her hand lingering above the knob, almost afraid she’d find a forest lying on the other side. “For the love, Danni. Get it together,” she mumbled as she forced herself to yank open the door.

  The stairs from her small flat to the workroom behind her shop squeaked with each step, and she gripped the banister until her knuckles turned white. The
adrenaline of being scared out of her wits had faded, leaving her weak and unstable. As she tried to hurry to answer the door before old Mr. Cooper knocked it down, she caught herself humming the song.

  The sound of her voice bounced backed to her off the chintz wallpaper, bringing about images from the dream. A fresh chill ran up her spine, and Danni silenced the humming as she hurried a little bit faster.

  Not bothering to light the lanterns on her way through, she navigated the crowded space by the dusty light shining through the shop windows. Mr. Cooper, bent and ancient beyond his years, waved happily at her through the panes as she quickly cracked the door just enough to poke her head out.

  “Widow Goodfellow. Forgive the intrusion, but I saw the shop was not open, and I was worried that you had taken ill or fell down those damnable stairs.”

  Yes, because if I had taken ill, banging on my door would be the perfect cure. Danni pushed the hateful thought aside and tried to smile. “Mr. Cooper, how very kind of you. I’m quite well, just a little late to rise this morning. If you’ll give me just a bit, I’ll have the shop open. I’m afraid I’m not in a decent state of dress to receive patrons.”

  “No, don’t worry, dear girl. I only wanted to check on your well-being and look for a little something for the missus. I’ll just hobble on down to the clockmaker’s and return later when you’ve righted yourself.”

  Danni bid him goodbye and shut the door, leaning her back against it and shaking her head. The nightmares had done a number on her, and she could still feel her hands tremble. Remembering the music box once more, she strode to her workroom to find it still unwrapped and sitting on the table where she’d left it the day before.