The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom

by Leah Cutter

  The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom

  Leah Cutter

  Clockwork Kingdom

  Leah Cutter

  Copyright © 2014 Leah Cutter

  All rights reserved

  Published 2011 by Knotted Road Press as “Clockwork Kingdom”

  Published by arrangement with Book View Café

  www.KnottedRoadPress.com

  www.BookViewCafe.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-405-5

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my brother Weston Cutter, the original clock and watch guy

  Thank you to Clarion West and the write-a-thon that inspired me to write this book

  Thank you to Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch for inspiring me to restart my career

  Chapter One

  “Dale! Don’t go that way!” Nora called in vain as her twin brother disappeared into the tall grass off the main road. His whitish-blond hair matched the four-foot tufts, blending in immediately.

  Nora looked up and down the road, biting her lip. She stood alone on the gravel, no dust trail of a car in sight. The sun beat down on her from a deep blue sky. She couldn’t hear the traffic on the Interstate, not this far inland. The quiet wash underlying everything had to be the ocean.

  “Mom’s going to be pissed!” Nora called as she stomped after her brother. Idiot. Mom wasn’t just going to be angry. She’d freak if they were late. They’d only just moved to Oregon a few months ago and this was the first time she’d let Nora and Dale walk home alone from the main road where the school bus dropped them off.

  The grass rustled, blown by a wind Nora didn’t feel, muttering to itself. She walked faster, shoving the swaying stalks aside. “Dale!” she yelled, pausing for a moment. The grass grew high above her head, making it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of her. Stillness ran icy fingers down her spine. She shook herself. No one was watching her. “If Mom doesn’t kill you, I’m going to,” she muttered as she made herself continue forward.

  A knotted bunch of stalks swayed in front of Nora, blocking her path. Just beyond them lay an open yard. With a final push Nora broke through. The edges of the grass slid across her palms, leaving stinging welts in their wake. “Ouch!” she complained and looked at her hands. None of her cuts appeared serious. Still, she told Dale as she walked up to him, “You are so dead.”

  Dale, of course, didn’t pay any attention to her. “Isn’t that cool?” he asked, pointing at the abandoned cottage perched on the cliff. Sad red paint covered the wood-shingled walls. Windows, outlined in white, stared at Nora with dark eyes. Only the doorknob shone in the bright sunlight. Gold flames licked the wood at either end of the doorplate. The knob itself resembled a collection of interlocking gears.

  “Don’t touch it,” Nora warned. The teeth of the gears looked sharp.

  Dale immediately reached for it. The door swung open silently.

  “Dale,” Nora warned.

  “Just for a minute. Then we’ll go home. I promise.”

  “No.”

  Dale walked into the darkness.

  ***

  Denise looked up from the dishes and down along the road again. The kitchen clock ticked quietly behind her. Soft winds blew the curtains framing the window. Nora and Dale would be appearing any minute now. She took a deep breath, calming herself. She shouldn’t panic; it was bad for her heart.

  Chris, her husband, had no idea where they were. Denise had paid only cash during their drive to Oregon from California, using aliases and hiding the kids when she could. She hadn’t contacted any of her old friends, and had only called her mom a couple of times since they’d arrived. She’d changed all their names here, as well. Chris couldn’t follow them. It was just a formality that they were still legally married. Denise would never go back.

  She should have just gone to meet the bus. However, both Nora and Dale had complained about it. According to them, none of the other moms waited like she did. She didn’t point out that none of the other moms had as much reason to worry.

  The water in the sink had grown cool by the time Denise stuck her hands back in. She pulled the plug, drained half of it, then added more hot. She made herself wait while the water level rose before forcing herself back to the task of washing both the breakfast and lunch dishes. It was one of the chores she’d negotiated with her kids, pleased they’d been so insistent on helping out. She did the early day dishes while they did the evening dishes. They took turns cleaning and cooking as well. Sometimes they seemed so grown-up, though they were barely teenagers.

  Denise washed an orange juice glass, then checked the clock again. Maybe the bus had been late.

  ***

  “Dale!” Nora called. “Mom said we had to go straight home!” The only reply was the sound of the waves crashing onto the rocks. Nora turned from the abandoned cottage and looked out, over the edge of the cliff. A white smear marked where the gray ocean met the sky. Just below her, bleached-bone-colored boulders jutted out of the water. She shivered despite the warm sun. Falling on those would hurt.

  Nora looked back at the house. Vines dotted with sharp thorns grew up across the red wooden walls. Scraps of paper, plastic bags, and fast-food wrappers lay plastered against the foundation. The strangely flat roof absorbed all the sunlight striking it, reflecting none of it back.

  Nora took a hesitant step toward the door, the rocks crunching loudly under her feet. The smell of decay and mold drifted from the dark entrance, as if the ocean had crept inside and rotted everything. She clenched her hands into fists, wincing when her cuts stung. She looked at her palms again. They were going to be in so much trouble when they got home.

  “Come on,” Nora said. She made herself walk all the way to the door, peering inside. Blackness greeted her. “Dale?”

  A muffled cry came in response.

  ***

  Only after Denise had emptied the water from the sink and dried her hands did she allow herself to look at the clock on the wall above the kitchen table again.

  The twins were officially late now.

  Denise assured herself repeatedly that nothing bad had happened to them. Maybe the bus had been late or they’d gotten distracted on the road. Perhaps they’d made friends with other kids who lived just up the street and were walking slowly. There was no reason to panic. She still grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, as well as her cell phone and her car keys. She’d walk down the road, not drive, but she still wanted them with her in case she needed to get somewhere quickly.

  Just as Denise opened the front door, her phone rang. Her cell showed the call came from a restricted number.

  “Hello?”

  “Denise?” a quiet male voice asked. Denise didn’t recognize it.

  “No, sorry, hon—you got the wrong number,” she said, affecting a slight twang and a breeziness she didn’t feel.

  The man chuckled. “Sorry for disturbing you, miss.” He hung up.

  Denise stared at the phone in her hand. She should ditch it. Or at least turn it off so no one could track it. But what if the kids were hurt? It was the only number the school had.

  It had just been a wrong number. No one was looking for her. She was just being paranoid, she told herself as she started walking down the driveway to the road.

  The phone rang again.

  ***

  Nora took a hesitant step into the dark cottage. The carpet squished under her
foot, moist and soggy. The musty smell made her wrinkle her nose. Before she could take another step, Dale raced toward her. Nora squeaked as he pushed past her, out into the sunlight. She quickly followed, her shirt catching on the sharp gear teeth of the door handle. The sound of tearing startled her, but didn’t stop her from rushing over to her brother.

  Dale stood in the sunlight, head bent over a jumble of gears and wires.

  “Are you all right?” Nora asked.

  Dale nodded, but paid no attention to her, still staring at the thing in his hands.

  “What is it?”

  “Broken,” Dale said, looking up and grinning at her.

  Nora sighed and shook her head. Her brother loved to tinker, to take things apart and put them back together. She didn’t care for his gears and schematics; she preferred soft wool and hard needles, to shape things out of mere knots. “Where did you find it?”

  “It was on the floor,” Dale said. He flicked one of the flywheels, setting it to spin. “There were a couple of things like this. The first one I grabbed bit me.” He held out his palm for her to see. Two tiny jab marks, like a spider bite, marked the fleshy part of his thumb.

  “Why’d you run out like that?”

  Dale looked back at the cottage. “Thought I heard something in there. It was kind of spooky,” he said softly.

  Nora nodded, hearing the truth. Dale would never admit to being scared to anyone but her. “Probably just a rat or something,” she said.

  “We better get going home,” Dale said, stepping back into the tall grass, easily finding the path. Nora followed. “Mom’s going to kill us for being so late.”

  “Kill you, you mean,” Nora said.

  “Nor…don’t be a spoilsport,” Dale wheedled. “Can’t we just say you lost a bet or something?”

  “Come on. You know we only do crazy things for bets.” Nora grinned, remembering the last time she’d won: She’d made Dale walk backwards for three hours.

  “Maybe you could say you fell.”

  “You just don’t want to get in trouble.”

  Dale paused. “I’ll do your dishes for a week.”

  “How are you going to explain that to Mom?” Nora asked, taking a deep breath to fight off the closed-in feeling of the stalks over her head. She told herself again that no one hid in the grass, watching them.

  “You didn’t fall. I pushed you,” Dale said.

  “What?” Nora asked. She gratefully stepped onto the road. Still no trail of dust from a car. Mom was probably waiting for them at home.

  “Pushed you,” Dale said, shoving Nora’s right shoulder and toppling her over onto the dirt road.

  Nora put out her left hand to catch her fall. “Ow!” she complained as her palm skidded across the hard stones. It bled more freely now. She looked down at her jeans, covered in dust. “Why did you do that?”

  “I’ll do your dishes for a week,” Dale promised, holding out a hand to help his sister back up.

  “You’re damaged, you know?” Nora said, disgusted, but she still let Dale pull her back to her feet.

  ***

  “Hello?” Denise said into the phone, still using a slight twang.

  “Dang it, I just called you, didn’t I,” the same male voice said. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know a Denise Monroe, would you? Out your way?”

  “Can’t say as I have,” Denise said, puzzled. That wasn’t her name, or one of the aliases she’d used.

  “Are you sure? She’s an old friend of the family, was my sister’s best friend growing up. And Sally…well, Sally’s dying and I really need to find her.”

  “I’m real sorry, I just can’t help you.”

  “Well, thank you for your time,” the man said. “I won’t call you again. Goodbye.”

  Denise hung up without another word. What had that been about? Had it just been a wrong number? Or something else? Had it been a test of some kind? She turned in place, looking over the yard. Her car was in the driveway. How long would it take to pack? What did they absolutely have to bring, what could they leave behind? She’d lose the deposit on this place, and she still was waiting for money from her last editing job to be deposited into her online account.

  With a soft laugh, Denise took a deep breath, calming herself. Everything was fine. No one was looking for her.

  When Denise looked up again, she saw Dale and Nora walking down the road. From the dirt on Nora’s clothes, she’d guess they’d had a fight, which explained why they’d been late.

  Everything was fine, she told herself again.

  ***

  Kostya the dwarf rose from his hiding place outside the abandoned cottage, the gateway to Queen Adele’s kingdom. Even when he stood, the pampas grass towered over his head. He tottered across the uneven ground, his large boots surprisingly silent. With the curved knife he pulled from his belt, he cut down the stems he’d used to block the girl’s path. Muttering a quiet spell, he licked the grass, deliberately slicing his tongue, mingling his blood with the girl’s.

  Strong. Stubborn. With a streak of Maker, thin and tightly knotted, but there.

  Then Kostya walked toward the cottage. He raised his left hand and moved it through the air as if turning a large wheel. The doorknob of the cottage didn’t respond. Frowning, Kostya used both hands. Slowly the door handle rotated.

  Kostya rocked back on his heels. He didn’t need to go inside, to check his jabber, to test the blood it had collected. The boy also had power, enough to set clockwork right, just by passing by.

  He could fix Queen Adele’s kingdom.

  ***

  After dinner and the dishes, Dale escaped to his room. He spread a sheet of plastic out over the scratched wooden floor. He knew that he wouldn’t hurt or spill anything, but his mom insisted he use it anytime he worked. Then he got out the piece of machinery, placed it in the center of the sheet, and examined it. He had the feeling that it was a prototype, though he couldn’t see what it was supposed to do or what powered it.

  The plastic crackled as Dale turned the piece on its side. He grimaced. He missed the workshop at their old place. He turned the piece again and identified six mounting brackets, where the mainspring came in, the primary flywheel, a balance, and where the tension springs curled. He speculated it was a type of battery—somehow it would be wound, then slowly tick out. However, he didn’t see an obvious place for a handle.

  With a silent curse, Dale reached for his tool set. Mom had let him take only the one set. He’d tried to grab the one with the largest variety of sizes, but right now, he wished he’d taken all the jeweler’s tools, the ones he’d inherited from Grandpa Lewis when he’d died.

  The bottom and side panels came off easily, exposing more gears than Dale had expected. The piece was either more than a battery, or its creator had believed in multiple backup systems.

  Excited, Dale started to take apart the primary mechanism. He couldn’t fix it; too many gears were missing. However, maybe he could get the secondary set to work. He wished he could call his old friends. They’d love to see this.

  “Hey,” Nora said softly.

  Dale grunted in reply, impatient at the interruption. He turned the piece, missing his workbench again—what he wouldn’t give for a proper vise. Or lights. Or tools.

  “You figure it out yet?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  “I only have a guess,” Dale said, exasperated. “I don’t know.”

  “Even Mom on a cleaning binge isn’t as anal as you.”

  Dale looked up at that. “Well, not all of us are slobs,” he added, gesturing at her sweater. “Why are you wearing that thing?” He called it her Franken-sweater. Nora had knit it from a variety of different colored yarns. One sleeve hung down over her hand while the other barely reached her wrist. The neck opened to the side, not down the center. She continually tore out pieces of it and re-knit it.

  “I finished redoing the cuff. See?” Nora held it out to him. “Peacock lace,” she said, t
railing a finger over one of the “feathers.”

  It was a cool pattern, though Dale wasn’t going tell his sister that. “It doesn’t match.” Green bobbles dotted the sleeve above the purple lace, and tightly knit, braided rows in orange joined the shoulder to the body.

  “That’s not the point,” Nora scoffed. “It’s my practice sweater, where I try out new yarn and stitches.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to wear it,” Dale pointed out.

  Nora shrugged. “I like it,” she said as she sat down on the floor next to the plastic. “Can I help?”

  “No,” Dale said automatically.

  They sat in silence while Dale poked at the innards of the piece, reattaching a wire, then rerouting the flow of power. Nora picked up one of the tiny gold screws. Dale was grateful she didn’t ask about it. It wasn’t a flat head, or a Phillips, either. It had three slots and took a special screwdriver. Like most of the machine, it was handmade.

  Still, questions built in the quiet room. Nora toyed with a spring, not really looking at it. Dale braced himself. It wasn’t that they could talk without words, like twins he’d read about. They were fraternal twins, not identical. However, Dale still knew that Nora wanted more than to just watch him work.

  “What do you think Dad’s doing?” Nora finally asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “He’d never hurt Mom.”

  Dale merely glared at her.

  “She was the one who spanked us as kids. Not him.”

  “He threatened to hurt her.” Dale remembered the stark terror in his mother’s voice as she’d talked to her own mother, told her what her husband had done, how he’d threatened to strangle her. Mom didn’t know Dale had heard her; he’d never told her.

  “Dad was just exaggerating. You know how he is.”

  “Yes, I do.” Dale couldn’t tell Nora, couldn’t tell anyone that his dad was a bully. Like most of his class, Dale had laughed and rolled his eyes at his teacher’s solemn proclamations of what a bully was and how they needed to report any such behavior. Inside, he’d been shaken.