Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) Read online

  “Stuffing pockets, yeah.”

  He didn't smile. I thought it strange.

  “You see anything worth stealing?” he muttered.

  “Not really, Kitt.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Some silence passed between us.

  “Uh...” I said at last. “I mean, hey...”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I mean, look. At least you won't land on the King's bad list.” I followed it with a weak laugh and expected a follow-up joke from his end of the room.

  “The King is a figurehead.”

  “Wha...what?”

  “Did you know no one's ever proved his bloodline, Pocket?”

  “Hey...come now...don't you think that's a little harsh, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  More silence came and did a stupid dance.

  “You have some proof of this?” I asked, if only to force conversation forward.

  “I listen to things.”

  “Oh...All right...well...if you're not going to look around we should probably—“

  “The upstairs is junk.”

  “Okay...”

  “But your bottle's up there.”

  I looked him over. He seemed in that instant a different man, altogether foreign to me and in a suddenly nasty mood to boot.

  “Uh...thanks,” I said. “You going to be all right?”

  “Yeah. Just gunna sit here 'til I warm up, is all.”

  “Sure. I'll...uh...be in earshot.”

  “I know.”

  “All, um, all right,” I awkwardly replied, nodding for effect.

  I took my eyes off him and found the staircase. Again, you are probably expecting me to say that I found it warped, gnarled, and twisted into a mourner's path, every step met with the haunting echo of some new creak or moan. To your possible dismay, I admit that in all actuality it was in rather good condition and even maintained a slight polish beneath the very thin layer of silver dust.

  Just to the top, I remember thinking to myself. I'd stick my head in the room above long enough to spot my faerie juice and then promptly leave.

  A minister once told me that a promise is the hardest thing in the world to keep. A drunk once said a woman. A beggar once said pretty gold and a lonely sailor, good company.

  Plans and well-meanings, I would soon be considering.

  I pushed a heavy door at the top of the stairs and stretched my neck into a not-so-dark room. No apparent lamps or candlework, yet I could see with absolute ease. The moonlight was enthusiastically beaming in, I realized, through a clean hole cracked into an otherwise grimy window.

  A broken window.

  Brandishing a rather green-goop-bottle-sized hole.

  I knew I was in the right spot.

  Kitt's description of the room as “junk” was a grand understatement. To this day, I have no inkling as to what color the carpet beneath my feet and the sea of scrap may have been. Loose screws, soiled napkins, broken clock-bodies, simple machines, pillows, scraps of clothing, even bits of food littered the place. I made some clever joke about it to myself that I forget at the moment but would've split your side, believe me.

  I waded my way through the rusty ocean, nearly lost my balance, and caught myself against a ceiling beam with a bit of paper tacked to it. Pushing against the beam to regain my balance, I accidentally ripped the paper scrap from the wall and held it clenched in my hand.

  “What did it say?”

  “What?”

  “The scrap.”

  “Oh...uh...something about the rhythm of a clock and a symphony and my love.”

  “Your love?”

  “No, not my love, Alan. Don't be loony. Whoever wrote it...it was, let me think...kind of a feminine script, the way the L's were looped...and it was kinda formerly perfumey.”

  “How can something be formerly perfumey?”

  “Hard to explain. See...it’s as if, well, when you put your nose to it, you don't smell the sweet scent of...um…”

  “Young love?”

  “Sure, the scent of young love. But the oily spotting around the paper suggests that it had once been doused, the way the adverts hanging in a perfumist's are.”

  “Hmmm...you realize, Pocket, that it's possible you were only reading mildew spots.”

  “Sigh...well, how do you want the spots to be remembered? I'm not revising this story after—“

  “Perfume is fine. Perfume is fine.”

  “Good.”

  I held the cherished scrap in my hand, the once scented paper bereft of any fragrance. A lover's note. A few humble phrases I would never forget.

  “Yeah, Pocket. You just said though that you don’t remem—”

  Softly, I put it aside and continued through the mess. I scanned the room for the shape of my bottle, only to see more scattered half-gadgetry. I nearly stepped into a kettle that was wired to what looked like a mousetrap. This watchmaker, I decided, must've gone a little eccentric in his later years.

  A few steps more and I saw a glassy spark, the very same kind of glassy spark my bottle regularly made under favorable starlight. I grabbed at the shine.

  Oh.

  Damn.

  I held in my hands what appeared to be a prototypal music box. It was encased in a thick shell that reflected the shine that had caught my attention. I grumbled something stupid and dropped it. The jolt knocked unexpected life into the relic, and the damned thing started to serenade me.

  “It was that woman singer, Alan. The one you're so fond of.”

  “I’m fond of a few. You mean, Miss Tiffany....Tiffany Chandler?”

  “No, no. The one you mentioned at the Rail the night I got thrown out of it.”

  “Ah. Lady Jay.”

  “Right.”

  “I see. What song was she singing?”

  “I don't know, but she wouldn't leave me alone with it.”

  I cursed under my breath and pushed forward through the cluttered room. Behind me, the music box sang like a songbird looking to peck my eyes out.

  “I think I went to bed too early, far too early for a dream...”

  Not a bad line. I took a few more steps.

  “Hang on, Pocket. You've got the wrong words.”

  “What?”

  “I recognize the song. ‘Far Too Early.’ A classic. And you're doing the wrong lyrics.”

  “You sure?”

  “Completely.”

  “Sigh...does it really matter in the story?”

  “Does to me. I'm a fan.”

  “Well, I'm trying, Alan. I wasn't paying that close of attention at the time and—”

  “Wait. How about this? I'll sing it for you.”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “You didn't know I sing, did you, Pocket?”

  “No.”

  “Well, now's your chance. Go on. Keep talking and I'll fill in with the appropriate musicmaking.”

  “I don't know. I don't generally work with other entertainers.”

  “Go on, go on. You'll love this.”

  “Eh...”

  I cursed under my breath and pushed forward through the cluttered room. Behind me, the music box sang like a songbird looking to peck my eyes out.

  “I think I'm singing this too early, far too early for this tune.”

  Not a bad line. I took a few more steps.

  “But I find myself here crawling, searching beneath an autumn moon.”

  Step, step, tiptoe, step. Foot in an electric bedpan. Shake. Step.

  “And I've got my worst foot forward, yes, this time, I'm on my own.

  Spun and shaken, I am looking, waiting just to be shown.”

  Then I saw it, sitting between a...I'm not sure...let's say a gyroscopic molecular proto-stabilizing machine and a beautiful, leather-bound book, its hide only slightly worn and its pages only slightly yellowed. Anyway, cradled between the two was my bottle, intact and without a single visible scratch. I was a little surprised and, for some reason, a little proud.

&
nbsp; I carefully dusted it off and admired it.

  “I found a hole deep in my pocket, and what I put in there is gone.

  Because of you I am down crawling, and I've been down here far too long.”

  Huh. I don't know if it was the lighting, or lack thereof, in the room, or the sea of interrupted progress I had swam through to get here, but in the moment, my bottle seemed suddenly...plain.

  I really don't know why.

  Well, I told myself. I can adapt to this evolving age, can’t I? Of course. I am perfectly able to exist in Alexander's grand Britain.

  Progress. That was the key. So...

  I rummaged around in the nearest lump of metal and cut myself. Ouch. But I am nothing if not persistent. I found a broken piece of...something. Perhaps an old birdcage or a candle tin or a lantern bottom. I bent it into a makeshift bottle holder and lodged my collection of green into it. There was also some rough leather belting, probably from one of those convenient conveyor contraptions the papers are always promoting. I worked it into a sling and tied it through the bottle's small handle loop. Wearing the faerie juice proudly at my side like a paperboy’s satchel, I smiled. I am William Christopher Pocket! Modern man!

  I modernly sneezed and waded back over the junk.

  “And I think it's far too early to admit that I have lost.

  I'm a fool and you are lovely, so I'll search at every cost.

  You're a beauty on a string, hiding somewhere in the night.

  And I need you hanging on me, so I…ah…so I….sorry, Pocket. Can’t recall the rest.”

  I strolled down the stairs and into the front room, repeating the song to myself.

  “…can’t recall the rest,” I sang.

  “What's that, Pocket?” Kitt said, still sitting on the floor.

  “Nothing. Just some music I picked up. What are you doing?”

  He held up a mess of papers. “Checking this bin.”

  “I found my bottle.”

  “I see that. What'd you do to it?”

  “Just...you know...fashioned it to this, eh, bit of metal and strap. Keeping with the times.”

  “How's that keeping with the times?”

  I thought about it. “I guess I don't know.”

  Kitt laughed and got up. “You're a strange one, Pocket.”

  I took in a mouthful of stale air and made a show of moving to the front door. Kitt got the idea.

  “Leaving?”

  “I suppose so. Nothing personal. Breaking and entering isn't really my kind of sport.”

  “Yeah. I understand.”

  I pushed the door. Still raining.

  “Don't you want to wait for that to clear up?” Kitt asked. I counted drops on a windowpane, which turned out to be much like counting beer foam bubbles, except without the entertainment of making the bubbles disappear.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “It's your call.”

  Eleven window drops. Twelve window drops.

  I pulled an old wooden chair from behind a corner desk and sat down. Kitt returned to the floor.

  “So...” I said.

  “So.”

  Twenty-three window drops. I let myself laugh.

  “Pretty awkward, isn't this?”

  “Yeah,” Kitt agreed. “Why is that?”

  “I really don't know.” I leaned forward, took off my hat, and scratched the mess of dark hair beneath. “It's been a rather strange night for me.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “I wasn't blaming you.”

  “Oh.”

  Thirty-nine drops. Kitt's mouth remained shut.

  “I've got to ask, Kitt. The outfit.”

  “Hmm?”

  “The whole bombardier look. Not exactly subtle for a thief. What's the story there?”

  And then, without warning, the crafty, animated smile crept back onto his face.

  “Bombardier,” he repeated. “I like that. I like that a lot.”

  Not the response I was expecting.

  “So...” I said, trying to prompt a story.

  “Did you hear something?” he said instead.

  I heard the silence of Kitt not answering my question. It was roaring.

  “No,” I answered dryly.

  “I'm serious, listen.”

  I did. Sure, some light squeakiness beneath the floor. Sounded like it was coming from the basement. Probably a loose hinge on a window or door or something. I made the monumental mistake of telling this to Kitt.

  A monumental gleam burst from his eyes like fire. The fox had returned.

  “A basement,” he repeated.

  I have never considered myself to be a man of proper philosophy, so should the following musings strike you as unnatural or maddening, please ignore them. But there are those moments, I believe, in this existence, where one can nearly see the unfolding of events in time by trying very hard not to. Kind of a gained sense. There are also, I believe, moments within moments where one can just barely deduce the splitting of a metaphysical road. The changes in time, the forking. Possibility. Out of the corner of his eye, one might see a very tired Will Pocket rise from his chair while another, equally likely, Will Pocket chooses to remain seated and humor the ramblings of Kitt Sunner. One could then see the first Will Pocket mumble goodbyes and head out into the night rain while the second scratches his head and bites his tongue at Kitt's proposal of a “grand exploration.” At the biting of the tongue, a third Will Pocket might appear, choosing to withhold reservations while the second is loudly complaining and the responsible first is half a mile away, looking for safer shelter. Minutes into this supposed possibility, the second Will Pocket throws his hands up in frustration, tells off the thief, and turns his back as Kitt begins pulling at floorboards. The third Pocket, passively waiting for the rain to clear, offers no vocal objection and finds himself somehow holding up pieces of carpet while his companion checks the floor. Time presses on and the enthusiasm of Kitt Sunner discovers a half-broken handle screwed into a square cut of wood beneath a moved workbench. It is at this moment that the third Will Pocket begins seriously wishing that his choices would have led him to become either the firm-resolved second, his hands at last clean of this whole affair, the first, moving further and further away, or a previously unmentioned fourth Pocket who had the divine intuition not to follow Kitt across the city in the first place.

  This however was not the case.

  “Give me a hand with this,” Kitt said, twisting his fingers around the handle. “It's hard to get a good grip.”

  “Looks like someone took a hammer to it.”

  “Yeah, looks like. Probably so the room won't be disturbed.”

  “So let's not disturb it.”

  “That's not very adventurous of you, Pocket.”

  “I'm not—”

  “I've got a better idea. Let's jump on it.”

  I closed my eyes and counted out a hundred alternative progressions of reality. I was happy to learn that none featured a Pocket even remotely willing to hop up and down on an unknown door.

  “Jump on it yourself.”

  “Fine,” Kitt said, and did exactly that.

  “Getting anywhere?” I asked.

  “I don't know. Can I borrow your bottle again?”

  “It's not magic. Going through old windows is one thing, but wood—“

  “Hold on! It's moving!” Kitt jumped again and sank about an inch into the floor.

  “You'd better be careful,” I advised.

  “I'll be fine. Watch this.” He lifted a knee to his chest and then slammed it back down. The wood instantly splintered and Kitt's leg went through the door.

  “Wow,” I said. “Impressive.”

  “Don't be too impressed. I didn't mean to do that.”

  “Oh. You need a hand?”

  “There's...something under me. Feels like a step. I think there's a staircase down there. Can you help me up?”

  “I just offered to—“

  “Here.”

 
; Kitt offered his hand and, clutching his arm, I pulled him up and out of the floor. A large chunk of wood came with Kitt's leg. He shook it off and bent over the hole he had made.

  “It's dark down there,” he said.

  “Shouldn't it be?”

  Kitt pulled at splinters until he had broken most of the door away. He then took his first, cautious step into the darkness.

  “You'd better be careful,” I repeated.

  “Sure, sure.” He took another two steps. His chest was half-sunk into the black. “In case the rain stops before I come back up, it was good to meet you, Pocket.”

  “You too,” I said, unsure if I was being honest.

  Kitt grinned and disappeared. The sound of footsteps faded into silence.

  And that should have been the end of it all. But once again...

  A metallic clang came crashing from the hole, the noise echoing up into the front room.

  “Hey fox!” I shouted. “You all right down there?”

  Silence.

  “Kitt?” I called out.

  Silence.

  “If you can hear me, make some noise.”

  Nothing. Curious.

  “I'm sure he's fine,” I said aloud, giving Kitt the opportunity to correct me if that wasn't the case. He didn't correct me. I waited. And waited. In silence. And was satisfied.

  Then I climbed down the hole in the floor.

  It was dark.

  I moved slower with each step, finding my footing on a stair before moving to the next. By the time I inched to the bottom of the staircase, I couldn't see a thing except the fading pool of natural light from the room above. I pressed my hands against a nearby wall and began feeling my way deeper into the basement.

  “Kitt,” I called once more, this time whispering. I'm not sure why I was whispering, but it felt appropriate.

  I continued moving, running my fingers against the wall until I hit a corner. Turning at the corner, I followed another wall and traced it until I came to an attached shelf.

  On the shelf was something that felt like a lantern. I felt around for matches but found none. Frustrated, I dropped the object in my hand back onto the shelf. Something clicked, and a bright, blue-white flame ignited from the device, casting a small circle of light. Most unusual. The object, a craftwork of polished metal, did indeed resemble a common lantern with its cover removed. The bottom of the device was dipped in formed rubber and two small coils ran from the base up and inside to the source of the flame. Retaking the device and holding it close to my person, I could distinctly smell the burn of gas.