Goggles, Gears, and Gremlins (SteamGoth Anthology Book 3) Read online

  Margaret hurried to a knock at the door, finding two old fishermen both bearded and gray. They told Margaret that Sheamus had fallen to an unfortunate end. They had not seen, only found the boat floating unmanned. They wished only to tell her the news and give her his belongings from the boat. Dazed, Margaret thanked the men, accepting Sheamus’ possessions and returned to her kitchen. She spread his things out on the table, immediately noting the presence of a most bizarre pouch. Looking to be woven of seaweed and tied shut with the same; Margaret weighed it in her hands. She cleared the table and set the purse in the center, delicately she pulled on one end of the tie; the ribbon freed and the pouch fell open. Margaret stared on in amazement, where once a small bag had sat now was a mass of magnificent cream white pearls. Margaret dropped into the chair beside her; she slowly let out a breath. Leaning back her head she closed her eyes, smiling; she whispered “thank you.”

  We often neglect that which we should embrace…

  Smile

  © 2013, Morgan Pasquier

  Christene Haldane never smiled.

  She would laugh and joke and sing and show other forms of happiness, but never once had she smiled. Her parents thought it odd, but didn’t question it. The neighbors thought it strange, and questioned it sometimes, but not for long. Until she turned ten years old; then it was just ridiculous. “Perhaps she just needs someone to make her smile,” they would say, “someone who can help her to see the joy in life.” Her parents agreed. Being a rather wealthy family, they would shower her with lavish gifts. Dresses and dolls and even, at one point, her own automaton. All things that they thought would make her smile, but their efforts were to no avail. She always got the best of everything; food, drink, clothes, toys… she seemed happy enough, but she still wouldn’t smile. A visit to the traveling circus did nothing, and the pony had been a complete waste of money. Hired therapists seemed to think nothing of her problem, saying that her parents were overreacting. “Perhaps it’s you two who need the help,” one said.

  So after she turned ten and still hadn’t smiled, her parents fired the therapists, spoke to an institution, and sent her away.

  There was nothing Christene could do about it, of course. Being a young, unmarried woman, the decisions she could make in life were rather limited. So she obediently packed her bags and entered the carriage they had sent to take her, because it would make her father happy. They stood in the doorway, waving and smiling, and she raised a hand to wave back.

  She did not smile.

  The ride was long and spellbindingly dull, so she slept. Pleasant dreams filled her mind, and her lips gave a twitch, but a sudden jolt from a pothole in the road roused her.

  She arrived and was shown to a little room with peeling white wallpaper and a tile floor. The window had bars on it, but they assured her that she wasn’t a prisoner. A patient, they said. So she accepted it and unpacked her bags.

  They brought her dinner, but she wouldn’t eat it. They must have accidentally switched her meal with the dog’s, she said, though they insisted that there was no mistake. She threw the tray to the floor in frustration and it shattered. The pieces were strewn about, but the maids cleaned it up. Christene was the only one who noticed the piece they missed. She concealed it in her pillowcase.

  The idea that these people had of therapy didn’t line up with hers; that was one of the first things she realized in the morning. Dunking her head in cold and then hot water was one of the first things they subjected her to that day, and when they were finished she went to her room and cried. When they brought her breakfast she refused to eat it, and nothing they could say would change her mind. “I want to go home,” she told them, but they only shook their heads and said that she had to get better first.

  She spent the night trying to loosen the bars in the windows.

  By the time the morning came the progress she’d made was dismal, and it wasn’t long before they’d collected her for another round of “therapy”. During the water dunking they explained that the sudden temperature changes were supposed to shock her brain back into normalcy. She told them that all it did was hurt her, but they said that it just needed time. Christene didn’t believe them.

  They sent someone to talk to her in the evening, but she didn’t want to talk to him. So she raised a hand against the man, throwing a fit that one could call “horrendous” until he left. When dinner arrived she threw it in the face of the maid who brought it, the tray breaking when it hit her and leaving the woman with multiple cuts. When she left there was still blood on the floor.

  She ignored the regret.

  When the day came they returned and tried to talk to her again. “You need to listen to us,” they said, “we’re only trying to help you,” but she wouldn’t believe them. Instead, she bit one of them and ran.

  The metallic taste of blood on her tongue wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

  Endless hallways and dreary lighting met her, twisting in ways that made her incredibly confused, and it wasn’t long before she was caught.

  They put her in a white jacket without sleeves this time, locking her in the room once more. She spent the night wishing for her mother.

  They didn’t bring breakfast the next morning, and white walls were her only company through the day.

  After a time she began to wish that they were red.

  Moonlight streamed through the window, bleaching the already colorless room. She felt anger at the intrusion and lunged to tear the moon from the sky, but the bars blocked her way. She sobbed on the floor, fighting against her restraints.

  They found her passed out from exhaustion the next day, and woke her. She did nothing to fight them when they led her away.

  “You need to listen to us,” they said, “this is for your own good. If we weren’t trying to help you, your parents would never have sent you here. Just let us help. If you promise to behave, we’ll even take you out of the jacket.”

  She stemmed what was left of her pride and agreed. They seemed skeptical, but they kept to their promise.

  They brought her cherry pie for good behavior that night, which she ate greedily. She realized at the first bite that she’d forgotten what it had tasted like. She thanked them, but her eyes were on her juice-stained hands.

  She decided that red was her new favorite color, but she did not smile.

  The sky darkened and the moon came up, staring down at her like a bulbous eye. She decided that it was mocking her.

  Christene didn’t like being mocked, so she set about wiping the smug smile off of its face. She flung herself towards the window, shrieking.

  She shouted her throat raw and clawed at the wall and window until her fingers bled, but she noted with pride that a sliver of it seemed to have disappeared.

  She still would not smile.

  She went to her cot and retrieved the slice of tray that she’d hidden there days before, streaking it red with her bleeding hands.

  They were working with the moon, she was sure. They had the same smug face that the moon had. Not for long, though.

  When they came for her she was ready. Adrenaline lead her movements as she lunged and attacked, brandishing the sharp ceramic piece like a dagger.

  The feeling of it sinking into flesh was a pleasant one.

  One fell quickly, crumpling to the floor with ease, while the other was more resilient. She glared at him and told him that he was going to die. He disagreed. He said that she needed to get a hold of herself, that they were helping her and she wasn’t getting anywhere.

  She was tired of being argued with.

  Christene tackled the man and brought the blood-covered shiv up, stabbing the man. The scream of pain he let out was turned into music in her ears.

  After he stilled she dropped the weapon, looking down at the blood covering most of the surfaces around her.

  She smiled

  There is always more beneath the surface…

  The Compact

  © 2013, Morgan Lane

&nbs
p; The Gates Residence was an old granite house. It sat in the middle of the city like a war memorial, square and plain with only a small garden in the back. Some thought it an eyesore and would compare it with the prim brick habitations standing on either of its sides. "It's so old and so small!" they would say. "Certainly Rhonda Gates could sell the house and find a suitable estate in the country if she wished, and then someone could have the wretched thing torn down!" For her part, Rhonda Gates never showed the slightest inclination to move from the house her father had left her, or to do a good many other things expected of a woman as well-off as she was.

  "No, I am not offering tours of the house today or any other day, Mister Noble," Rhonda Gates said calmly. She was working in her garden, as she often did when she wasn't attending to business matters, and didn't so much as look up when a weedy man in a suit approached the gate. Mister Noble took off his hat and frowned at her, the epitome of frustration.

  "But Miss Gates, your house does have, er..." He trailed off, gazing at the dreary slab. "...intrinsic historic value. The city is prepared to offer you a considerable sum if you'll just--"

  "I know perfectly well why you and the rest want the house." Miss Gates stood. She was a head shorter than the man from the city council. Nevertheless she looked up into his face undaunted as she wiped her dirty hands on her smock. "You don't like that it doesn't match the new houses."

  "Well... no, we don't."

  She smiled. "There, now it's out in the open. You want to get rid of it."

  Mr. Noble sighed. "The neighbors keep complaining, Miss Gates, and surely you can't blame them."

  "If the neighbors take offense at the house, they can talk with me personally about it. Either way I'm not leaving. I like how close it is to the cannery."

  "Oh confound it all, you HAVE money. Surely you don't need to continue working. You could sell the factory, start a family, be content for once... I mean to say, isn't that what you really want?"

  Miss Gates's smile became slightly fixed. "My, it is good that you weren't born a few centuries ago, or they might have burned you as a witch. Claiming to know what goes on in other people's heads never ends well."

  "That's rather off the point. I only meant to say-- ACK!"

  Mr. Noble jumped back as a squat ball of matted fur leapt onto the fence. It was without a doubt the ugliest cat he had ever seen. Its jaw jutted out from its face so one fang stuck up over the top lip, and its hair was coming out in patches along its back.

  Miss Gates laughed. "Oh settle down, it's only Bartholomew. I must have left the door open. Poor old thing doesn't get out much."

  Mr. Noble eyed the cat reproachfully. If there was one thing he hated, it was being made to look like a fool. Bartholomew, for his part, stared back in the most unperturbed manner imaginable, a rattle that might have been a purr coming from his throat.

  "I never did like cats much," he said stiffly, as though to justify his behavior. "They're not very useful animals."

  "Bartholomew is perfectly useful!" Miss Gates picked the cat up. He was very large, but Miss Gates was solidly built and had no trouble lifting him.

  "Oh is he?" Mr. Noble crossed his arms, looking annoyed. "And what does he do exactly, besides jump into people's faces?"

  "He keeps me and my nephew company, for one," she replied. "He's a very smart cat after all. You would think he was almost human at times." The note of pride in her voice as she scratched behind Bartholomew's ears was undeniable.

  "Is that all?"

  "Well no. He also does a good job of keeping pests out of the house. You won't find a better mouser anywhere, and you can take that to the bank."

  Mr. Noble thought the fleas Bartholomew was undoubtedly harboring were a steep price to pay for his mousing abilities, but he only shook his head. "Well. Either way, we are very far off the subject. I strongly suggest you reconsider my offer, as we are being quite--"

  "Persistent and annoying, I agree, but my answer remains the same." Miss Gates glanced at the sun dial. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to hold, and I very well can't show up with dirt down my front. Good day Mr. Noble." Without another word she gathered her gardening supplies and walked back into the house. Bartholomew slunk in the door behind her after giving the councilman one last glassy-eyed stare.

  But Mr. Noble stood by the gate for some time afterward, thinking. The woman was being simply unreasonable. Surely the others wouldn't mind too much if he took matters into his own hands.

  ***

  It was getting dark when Mr. Noble arrived at the Gates Residence once more. He had often visited the old house by day, but at night it wasn't quite the same. There wasn't as much difference between it and the newer additions with the moon at all of their backs, casting each building into black shadow as though it was nothing but a paper cutout. And yet there was still something to set it apart, something about the cast of the windows when they reflected the streetlamps, the occasional creaking from what must have been its settling foundation... If Mr. Noble had been inclined to be imaginative, he might have thought the house seemed alive.

  As it was, Mr. Noble just thought it was a good thing he was a part of the City Council and as such had access to the floor plans of the wretched building. There was a door leading to the basement from the outside that he could break into easily enough without having to go through the main bulk of the house. That made it much less likely that he'd wake anyone up.

  Carefully he climbed over the gate and stole through the garden, making sure not to leave prints in the earth Miss Gates had turned in her gardening earlier, and approached the basement's door. He was fortunate; there was no chain to cut through, just the regular lock. She must have used the door often enough that a chain would be more of a hindrance than a help. It took next to no time to break, and the snap of his bolt cutters was heard by no one. Feeling rather proud of his accomplishment, Mr. Noble pulled open the hatch and began his descent into the basement.

  Each step creaked beneath his feet. The light from his lantern revealed age-worn stone and neatly organized tools wherever it landed in the small room. A slight smell of mildew and something acrid he couldn't place lingered on the air. It seemed ordinary enough, but there had to be something he could report. In a house as old as this, there was bound to be some safety infraction he could call to the attention of the rest of the council-- anonymously, of course. And then they would have their foot in the door.

  He smirked to himself. The others would congratulate him if they ever found out-- what was that noise?

  Mr. Noble paused and turned his light this way and that. Perhaps it was a rat. Or better yet, an infestation of rats. After all, if there was one there were bound to be more.

  But he was disappointed. A squat ball of matted fur blinked up at him from the corner, its mangy tail twitching. Bartholomew might have been vermin, but he certainly wasn't a rat.

  "Shoo," Mr. Noble hissed. "Leave me alone."

  The cat blinked at him, clearly unimpressed, but all the same it rose to its feet and slowly slunk over to... well wasn't this interesting.

  A plain wooden door stood ajar to his left. Mr. Noble couldn't recall seeing any rooms connected to the basement in the floor plans he'd studied that afternoon. If Miss Gates's father had contracted unauthorized construction, that would certainly be another mark against it.

  He followed the cat into a cramped passageway carved directly into the foundation. Bartholomew's tail whisked out of his lantern's light to disappear into blackness before he had taken more than a few steps in. Good riddance. But where was the end of the hall? He couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of himself. Mr. Noble stared blindly at the shadows as he weighed his options. If this was just a wine cellar that he'd overlooked in the plans, as was most likely, then there wasn't much to worry about. But if it really was some hasty, unauthorized construction on the already aged house, could he guarantee its stability? What if it was unfinished or ended in some fissure the old man hadn't anticipated, and h
e wound up injuring himself?