This Monstrous Thing Read online

The mechanical man pushed the door closed, then made a sharp turn and held out its arm. Geisler draped his fur-trimmed cloak over it. “Give it your coat,” he instructed me, nodding at something over my shoulder. I jumped as another metal man, identical to the first, rattled out of a doorway off the entrance hall carrying a dressing gown.

  Clémence smirked as I dodged out of its way. “Don’t fret, they don’t bite.” She pushed me forward into its path. “It’s just an automaton.”

  I looked from her to Geisler. “An automaton?” I repeated. “But it’s . . .”

  “Sentient?” Geisler offered. “Not to the capacity I would like.” He fed his arms through the sleeves of the dressing gown the automaton extended for him. “They have the mental faculties of a dull dog, and the ocular function as well. Only basic sight and auditory cues, but, like a dog, they can be trained, and they do learn over time. Not as fast as I’d like, but they do learn. By now they seem to know what I’m asking, though it took a hell of a long time to get them to this level.”

  “You made them?” I asked as the first automaton shuffled toward me, its arms outstretched. I thrust my coat forward, which satisfied the metal man into retreat.

  “Of course,” Geisler replied. “Though they are hardly the masterpiece I envisioned when I first considered giving life to clockwork. They have no capacity for original or independent thought, no personality, and they couldn’t function without specific direction. Nothing compared to my original designs for the resurrected man.” He looked over at me, so quickly I almost thought I imagined it. When I didn’t say anything, he smiled. “Well then. Let me show you the house.”

  Geisler gave me a brief tour, poking his head into each room just long enough to allow me a quick glimpse. Somewhere on the first floor we lost Clémence, and I assumed she had chosen sleep over seeing a home she already knew. The rooms were as tidy as his office had been, and everything was lit with Carcel burners—lamps with clockwork pumps in the base to circulate the oil and keep the flames burning longer, far too expensive for my family to afford. There were clocks everywhere—each room had at least one. Between the clocks, the mechanical lamps, and the automatons, which seemed reluctant to let Geisler out of sight, the whole house buzzed like a hive.

  At the end of the second-floor corridor, Geisler led me into a small room with an iron-framed bed and, wedged into one corner beside a leaping fire, a writing desk. There were three clocks on the mantelpiece, pendulums swinging out of sync with each other and clicking loudly. “This can be yours,” he said, stepping back to let me in. “I had fresh linens put down, but it hasn’t been used in a while, so it may be dusty.”

  “That’s all right.” I crossed the room to the window. The first flakes of snow were starting to brush ghostlike against the rippled glass. The room looked out across the back garden, where fingers of sharp brown grass stabbed upward through the snow. I could see a coach house and a squat stone building nearly as wide as the main house, though single storied and with a thatched roof. “What’s that?” I asked Geisler, and he stepped to my side.

  “My workshop. Though I hardly use it now. I do most of my work at the university.”

  “Do you think you could show it to me?” I asked. “I’d love to see—”

  Geisler cut me off with a laugh. “You certainly are eager. I’ll show you if you like, but there’s hardly anything out there.” He put a firm hand on my elbow and turned me away from the window. One of the automatons had come in behind us and was standing so close that I started. “I’ve left some spare uniforms from the university in the dresser—why don’t you change, we’ll take a quick look at the workshop, then have some super and a good talk?”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean I wanted to see the workshop now,” I said, prying my arm from his grip. “Just . . . while I’m here.”

  “Supper, then?”

  “I’d rather go to bed. If that’s all right.”

  He squinted at me over the top of his spectacles, and for a moment he looked like he was going to argue. Then he nodded. “Of course it’s all right. Completely sensible. I don’t know what I was thinking, of course it can all wait until tomorrow, of course. Out!” he barked at the automaton that had followed us. It took several arthritic steps into the hallway. Geisler followed, but turned back to me in the doorway. “If you need anything at all, call out and one of them”—he nodded toward the automaton—“will come.”

  “All right,” I said, though there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be calling the metal men into my bedroom.

  “I’ve instructed them to make you comfortable. I do hope you’re comfortable here.” He smiled at me with such a sincere affection it felt foreign.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Sleep well, then,” he said, his face golden and warm in the firelight. Then he shut the door with a soft snap.

  As soon as Geisler was gone, I stripped down to almost nothing and fell on top of the bed, which, I discovered with a stab of delight, was stuffed with feathers—I hadn’t had a feather mattress since we’d lived in Scotland. The house around me was quiet but not silent, with the three clocks ticking out of sync on my mantelpiece and drumming into my thoughts like dissonant heartbeats, joining the clamor already ringing around my head when I wondered again what I was doing here instead of back in Geneva with Oliver and my parents. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to quiet my brain enough to sleep, but everything inside me felt riotous.

  I stood, crossed the room in two strides, and ripped open the face of the first clock. I tugged a handful of gears from inside, pinching my finger hard in the process, and the clock froze, pendulum halting as suddenly as if I had seized it. I could have stopped the clock by removing a single piece, but I wasn’t looking to be delicate or kind, I just wanted it quiet.

  I silenced the other two clocks, then dropped the gears on the desk. It was quieter than before, but I was still left thinking about Oliver. No chance of ripping him out of me.

  I wondered what he would say if he were here with me. Not the Oliver I had now, but the Oliver from before, the one who sought out strange adventures because they’d make a good story. Being brought to a solitary house on the cusp of a snowstorm by a girl with white hair—he’d go wild for that. It could be the start of a horror novel, he’d say, the sort Mary claimed she’d someday write. When I closed my eyes, I could picture him as he had been before he died: dark hair tousled, eyes alive with excitement, his fingers scratching at his bottom lip, always thinking. “It’s never simple, Ally,” he would say to me. “Nothing’s ever the way it looks straight on.”

  He’d said that to me in Amsterdam. The first time he’d been arrested. I remembered it suddenly, like a door opening inside me, and heard his voice in my head. The image of him in my memory shifted into standing in the police station while they took the irons off him, grinning at me like it was all a stupid joke.

  I’d been the only one home when an officer came to inform us my brother had been arrested for punching out a man’s teeth, and instead of waiting for my parents, I’d taken one of the bill rolls we kept stashed around our flat and gone to fetch him myself so Father wouldn’t find out. I’d stood in the waiting room at the station, lamps bright as noon though outside everything was frosty and black, and watched as the cuffs came off. The officer handed him back his coat, and I didn’t even wait for him to put it on. I turned and left the station without a word.

  I didn’t say a thing to him as we walked along the frozen canals. The only way I knew he was following was the sound of his footsteps in the snow. We were halfway home before he said, “You’re walking so fast.”

  My temper flared against his voice like a struck match. “I want to get home.”

  “Can we stop?”

  “No.”

  “Just for a moment.”

  “No.”

  “Ally, stop.” He caught my arm, and I whirled around so fast he took a step back. “What’s the matter?”

  �
�Are you insane, or are you really as stupid as you act sometimes?” I cried, and I surprised myself with how loud and angry the words came out—I was usually so good at keeping my temper.

  Oliver looked startled too. “What are you talking about?”

  “I like it here! But if you go and do idiotic things like brawling in the street, we’re going to get caught and have to leave. Or worse. And it will be your fault.” The corners of my eyes were starting to pinch, and I scrubbed the back of my hand hard against them.

  When I looked up, Oliver was watching me, his face tight. “I didn’t mean to get into trouble.”

  “Well, somehow you always do.” The words came out more teary than I meant them to.

  We stood for a minute on opposite sides of the street, our shadows made skeletal by the lamplight. I was so angry at him. The angriest I’d ever been. Angry that he could be so careless and selfish, like I didn’t matter to him at all.

  Oliver turned away from me suddenly and took a few steps to the edge of the street until his toes were hanging over the short ledge above the frozen canal. He stood there for a moment, balanced, then eased himself down so that he was standing on the ice. His arms rose like a puppet on strings.

  “What are you doing?” I called.

  He grinned back at me, his smile a streak through the darkness—as bright as the frozen canal. “Come here.”

  “I haven’t got skates.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “You’re mental.”

  “Come on!” I didn’t move. Oliver pushed himself off with his feet flat and slid straight ahead. He wobbled, but stayed upright. “This is brilliant,” he called over his shoulder. “Can’t believe you’re missing it.”

  I hesitated, watching him glide away from me, then made an abrupt decision. I sat down on the lip of the canal and lowered myself onto the ice after him. I tried to stand like he had but lost my nerve at the last minute and sat down hard instead.

  Oliver laughed. “Get up!”

  “No!” I pulled myself after him on my backside, fingers sticking to the ice through the holes in my gloves.

  Oliver laughed again, spinning in a half circle to face me. “Come on, Ally, get up!”

  “I’m going to fall!”

  “You won’t fall! I’ll help you.” He held out a hand.

  I pushed myself from my knees to my feet but stayed bent at the waist with my palms flat on the ice. When I did straighten, it was slowly, inch by inch, arms out at my sides and every muscle clenched. Oliver whooped encouragement.

  I reached out for his hand, but as soon as I moved, my feet went in opposite directions. I tried to catch myself with a step but it turned to a stumble, and somehow I was sliding and running and falling all at the same time. I missed Oliver’s hand and instead smashed straight into him. He grabbed me under the elbows so when I fell, we fell together, all the way down to the ice.

  The landing smarted, but it didn’t truly hurt, and it was so foolish that I laughed. Oliver laughed too, but then he winced, and my smile faded. “You all right?”

  He held up his hand. In the splash of the streetlight, I could see that the skin of his palm was torn up and bloody, and there was a raw scrape running up his wrist and into his sleeve.

  “Did that happen just now?” I asked, alarmed.

  “No, it was . . . from earlier.”

  For a moment, I’d forgotten why we’d been out here to begin with, but it came back suddenly. Somewhere between the street and the canal, my anger had left me, floated away like snow on the wind, but I could still feel the weight of it between us. “The policeman said . . . He told me you punched a man. Is that how you hurt your hand?”

  “No, that idiot shoved me and I fell on it. Then I punched him.” Oliver blew a foggy breath into the air, then leaned backward until he was lying flat on the ice. I was already shivering, but I stretched out beside him, our heads together, staring up at the splash of stars above us. We didn’t speak for a while. Then Oliver said, “There was this beggar on the street. He had a clockwork leg, but it was run-down and rusted, and his skin was infected. Bloody mess. I tried to help him and some bastard grabbed me and started calling me names and knocked me down. I didn’t attack him, I just fought back. The police didn’t arrest him, though. Just me, because I was helping the clockwork chap.” He pressed his tight fist against the ice. The scrape on his wrist left a smear of pale crimson. “Nothing’s ever that simple, Ally,” he said then. “It’s never just ‘I hit him’ or ‘he hit me’ or he was right and I was wrong. Everything’s always got sides and angles and all sorts of bits you can’t see. Nothing’s ever the way it looks straight on.”

  I fell asleep remembering that—lying beside Oliver on the iced canal, our breath frosty and warm as it drifted up and away from us into that black, black night.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  I woke suddenly, like an impact from a high fall. The fire had died to pulsing coals, and the sky outside was black. I climbed out of bed, flinching as my bare feet connected with the cold floorboards, and cupped my hands against the window to look out. The snow had swelled into a blizzard, and thick white flakes obscured the yard. I could hardly make out Geisler’s workshop through it.

  I dressed in the dark, not certain why I was up so early, or whether it was actually early or simply dark from the storm. The gutted clocks on the mantelpiece were still stuck at the same time they had been the day before and gave me no clue. So, dressed in one of the large university uniforms Geisler had left, I abandoned my room to see if anyone else was awake.

  The house was dark and silent but for the syncopated clicking of dozens of clocks. At the bottom of the stairs, I spotted a light and followed it to the kitchen, where a fire was burning in the grate. A loaf of bread was laid out on the table, a knife stuck into the cutting board next to it. My stomach growled audibly.

  I wiggled the knife out of the board and started to saw off a slice of bread when something knocked into me from behind. I whipped around, knife held in front of me. It was one of the automatons, its arm outstretched, coming toward me. I tried to dodge out of its way, but it knocked into me again so hard that I fell backward into the table. The legs screeched against the stone floor. The automaton took another shuffling step closer, and I considered burying the knife in it and hoping that jammed up its works, but stabbing servants—mechanical or not—didn’t seem like the appropriate way to repay Geisler for taking me in.

  The automaton’s head twisted slowly until its glassy eyes were fixed on the knife in my hand. My grip on the handle tightened. “Like hell,” I said, though I wasn’t certain it understood. “You may not have this.”

  The automaton reached out. I tried to duck out of its way, but its hand fastened around my fist holding the knife and squeezed. I yelped in pain as my fingers buckled beneath its iron grip.

  There was a whoosh as a door on the other side of the room opened, blowing in a handful of snowflakes and Clémence, wearing the same trousers and gray coat from the day before. Her white hair was fuzzy with snow. She stared across the room at me, bent backward over the table by the advancing automaton that I was certain was about to rip me to pieces with the knife it was trying to break out of my hand.

  And she laughed. “You’ve got to let it slice the bread.”

  “What?” The automaton took another step forward, knees cracking against mine, and I flinched.

  “It wants to serve you—that’s what it’s made for. It won’t back off until you let it cut the bread.”

  “Are you certain that’s all it’s keen on cutting?” I asked.

  Clémence flopped down beside the fire and raised her hands to the flames. “Never mind. Let it break your fingers if you want.”

  I glared at the back of her head, then loosened my grip on the bread knife so that it slid from my fingers to the automaton’s. The mechan
ical man straightened immediately, and I wiggled out from between it and the table as it took a lurching step toward the bread and began to saw at it. When it had a slice, the automaton pivoted sharply and extended it to me.

  I took it. “Er, thank you.”

  Its spine snapped straight, then it turned and headed out of the room, each step ticking.

  Clémence was watching me with her mouth twisted up in that stupid smirk. I glowered at her, then sank down in front of the fire and started to eat. The automaton had scared the hunger straight out of me, but I had gone to too much trouble to get the bread not to eat it.

  “Sleep well?” Clémence asked.

  “Yeah, good enough.” I glanced over at her and realized she was shivering, arms wrapped around herself and cheeks pinched scarlet. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re freezing. Here.” I cast around for something to warm her, but she cut me off.

  “I said I’m all right. Let me save you the trouble of stripping off your shirt in an attempt to be gallant.”

  “Can I make you tea?” My eyes darted to the hallway. “Will they come after me if I try?”

  “Not if you’re sneaky about it,” she replied.

  I stood up and retrieved the kettle from the counter. It was already full. “What were you doing out so early?” I asked as I hung it over the fire.

  “What are you doing up so early?” she returned.

  “All the traveling mucked me up,” I replied. “And my father always has me up early. It’s habit. What time is it anyways?”

  “I’m not sure.” Clémence stood up for a better view of the clock on the mantelpiece, which, I realized after a silent moment, wasn’t running. “Damn, it’s stopped.”

  “Probably just needs to be wound.”

  “No, they’re not made to be wound. Geisler started them with the pulse gloves.” She flipped open the lid of the clock and stared at it as though unsure what she was looking for. Then she shut it and slumped back down onto her stool. “Never mind, he can fix it when he gets up.”