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

  Gaslight? Without striking a match?

  Inspecting the device, I found a large button on the back of it. I pressed it, the light went out. I pressed it again, the light returned. Fantastic!

  “Kitt! Kitt, you have to see this!”

  I held up the gaslight lantern and marveled at it. It cast a glow onto the shelf and, looking up, I could see that it was filled with dozens of equally-incredible devices, all clad in the most beautifully-shining metals I have ever seen.

  There was also a framed photograph.

  “What?” said Kitt, standing directly behind me.

  I dropped the lantern with a yelp and a clatter. The room once more returned to darkness.

  “Why'd you do that?” Kitt asked.

  “Why did you sneak up on me?!?” I shouted back.

  “You told me I had to see something!”

  “Well, you could've given me...sigh. I dropped a lantern. Help me find it.”

  “Oh. Sure. I think it’s right here.”

  The blue-white light sparked on. Kitt stood before me with the device.

  “Wow,” he said. “How's it doing that?”

  “Don't know.”

  “Pretty strange.”

  “Quick work, by the way,” I commented.

  “I have good eyes in the dark. Comes in handy.” He handed me the lantern. “Just watch.”

  “No. Kitt!”

  And once again he was gone. I didn't follow. Instead I put my gaze back to the shelf and instantly locked eyes with a monochromatic pair staring back from the photograph.

  They were a woman's eyes.

  The woman was young and beautiful, which is reason enough for me to frame her picture, but she was also clearly in love. A man stood next to her, a good ten to fifteen years her senior. He held her tiny hands in his and both shared a smile I would pay any sum to own and wear. He was a good-sized man, large-framed, small eyes, but such a sharp fire in them. The lovers were standing on a pier before a docked ship, and a delicate watch chain hung out of both of their coats' pockets.

  Watch. There was one on the shelf. It sat quietly as it needed to be wound. It had no chain.

  I looked back at the couple by the water and felt instantly guilty. I think it was the way they were staring at me.

  “Sorry,” I said to them both, rather stupidly. “I don't usually break into places. I mean, I don't at all. This is...I suppose...my first.”

  I laughed. The man seemed to tighten his grip on the woman's hands. A protective move.

  “Anyway, I apologize. I'll...uh...return the lantern. When I retrieve my friend. He's just...”

  Something made of glass shattered in the distance.

  “...robbing you blind.” I looked at the gentleman's bristled eyebrows. “Anyway, I apologize. Don't miss your ship.”

  The time seemed right to move on, so I moved on. Lantern in hand, I continued down the wall. It was still dark, but the glowing patch of portable light allowed me at least to see where my feet were falling. Great snaking shadows were cast on the wall, some large and hulking, others small and mechanical, but all completely fascinating to the young man walking in the dark. So fascinating, in fact, that I didn't see the long-handled lever protruding up from the floor until I had walked into it. I nearly tripped, and then, a little annoyed at my carelessness, regained composure.

  Shining the light over the mechanism, I could see that it was made out of the same shiny metal as the lantern and many of the other unusual objects I had nearly walked into in the shadows. Now, I have read and have been told enough stories in my life to know that when a man finds an unusual lever lurking in the darkness, he pulls it.

  So I did.

  “What stories?”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “In what story is there a man who pulls a lever in the darkness?”

  “Oh...I don't know, there must be. Something with a hero chained in a sadist's dungeon, maybe. Or a villainous laboratory.”

  “Mmm...doesn't ring any bells, Pocket.”

  “Well, it doesn't matter. I'm sure there are probably hundreds. Doesn't matter.”

  “Hey, since we're intervening from the grand narrative here, you know what you could do?”

  “I'm going to forget my place in the—”

  “You could have yourself get chained up in a dungeon. I mean, later in the telling, right? And then, you could get out, no, or Kitt could break you out, and then you find a magic lever—“

  “I never said it was magical.”

  “...find a magic lever and pull it and say something really sharp like...uh...'Told you, Fox Boy! Happens to heroes all the time!' Yeah, put that in!”

  “This isn't a work of fiction, Alan.”

  “Mmm...”

  “I'm trying to recall to the best of my ability the manner in which these events unfolded.”

  “So maybe you recall getting chained up in a dungeon later, is all I'm saying.”

  “Alan...”

  “Look, I told you. I don't care if I believe it or not. It's entertaining.”

  “But it's more than...fine. Where was I?”

  “Lever in the darkness.”

  A soft, chugging sound, much like a far-off locomotive, began building in the corners of the room, or what I assumed to be where the corners were located in the dark. A strong smell of gas began protruding into the space around me. I began to get nervous. The smell continued and just at the moment when I was about to throw my hands back on the lever and pull and yank with every panicky finger, the room began to light up. Not all at once, but timed, like dominoes falling in sequence. Larger blazes of fire ignited out of mounted fixtures across the walls, one after another with a pop and hiss, until the entire basement was completely lit. I realized I hadn't exhaled in a while and did so.

  Incredible.

  The basement was much larger than I had suspected. The large room I was standing in was one of several connected by open doorframes that unraveled under the surface of London. Large rubber and metal coils crawled across the walls like vines, sliding in and out of the rooms. Arteries, they seemed, moving from a central heart across the body of this...this...

  Basement was no longer an applicable word. Laboratory seemed more appropriate. I didn't know what to think. Steam vents were drilled into the baseboards, expelling warm puffs of air at precise intervals. But what was producing the steam? And for that matter, why? What was it powering?

  And what in the name of God, the larger question seemed to be, was a dead watchmaker doing with a collection of wonders boarded up beneath his office floor?

  I switched off the lantern and left it on the closest table. I moved through the room like a spectator in an artist gallery, observing trinkets and inventions. They were all dumbfounding beyond all belief. A self-bubbling tea kettle. A magnetic pair of workers' gloves. And on every wall, the most bizarre sketches and schematics. Drawings of dreams, of things that might be in this day and age. I was in absolute awe.

  “Pocket!” I heard Kitt shout from somewhere. “Come over here!”

  “What is it?”

  “Just come over here! Trust me!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Back room! Come on!”

  “All right! Give me a moment.”

  I worked my way to where Kitt was calling from and noticed the wood around the doorway was considerably more worn and seemingly bleached. It had been a strange night, all right, and it would only get more so.

  I took a few steps into the room to find that it...somehow...stopped...being a room. I paused and checked both my steps and my vision, for I was now standing in what appeared to be the hull of a ship. I checked my vision again. Yes, definitely a ship. The space was outfitted with railings and various nautical equipment. Bells and barometers. Even a captain's wheel. The Union flag hung on one side of the room and on the other, a framed sailing map of the East.

  “Bizarre, isn't it?” Kitt said, playing with the wheel.

  “It's...a ship.”
r />   “I know. Look at these walls.”

  I did. Wooden paneling with glass portholes. I put my eye to one hole, half-expecting to see a rocking ocean on the other side. I didn't, of course, and found myself staring into a flat, cement wall.

  “Why would someone build a ship into a basement?” I wondered.

  “No idea,” Kitt said, blowing dust off of the railings. “There's a sign in the back.”

  I followed him to the end of the cabin, er, room. Mounted across the back wall was a large wooden sign. Slivers of paint were chipping off and carved in large letters were the following words:

  THE LADY VIOLETTA:

  TO WORLDS UNKNOWN

  “Violetta...” Kitt mumbled as we stared.

  “Pretty name for a ship,” I offered.

  He nodded and began checking drawers and closets.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for a bag,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “Carrying all of this outside, obviously.”

  That's right. For some reason, I had momentarily forgotten Kitt's motives in coming to the watch shop in the first place, and I felt a little jarred upon remembering. It had felt for a very short time that we were nothing but wayward visitors, onlookers in this tomb of a museum.

  “Shouldn't a thief already have a bag?”

  “I didn't think of it.”

  “How could you—“

  “Can you help me look? I need to loot.”

  I laughed. He asked why, but I declined to comment, not wanting to point out to him the silliness of proclaiming “I need to loot.”

  “Fine, Kitt. I'll check back here.”

  The back wall of this would-be ship was bent in a sort of W shape. The sides of the wall tucked back at an angle and connected into a corner into little half-walls. The half-walls turned out to be false and one pivoted open as I knocked my knuckles on it.

  “I think I'm singing this too early,” I whispered to myself as I slid past the false wall into the opening it revealed on the left side of the room, “far too early for this tune.”

  “Hey Pocket,” I heard Kitt say. “Do you think I could've been a sailor?”

  “Sure, why not?” I answered. “But I find myself here crawling, searching beneath an autumn moon...hmmm...nothing.”

  I blew a cobweb out of the empty cavity behind the wall, slid out, and moved towards the other side.

  “Do you think I could've been a good sailor?” Kitt asked.

  “Do you get seasick?”

  “Sometimes.”

  I pushed the false wall on the right side of the room. It got caught on something.

  “Then, sure. You could make a great sailor, some of the time.” I pushed harder and the wall started slowly moving. It felt like there was a box or something propped against the other side. “And I've got my worst foot forward, yes, this time, I'm on my own...damn, what's back there?”

  “Pocket, I'm going to check back in the hall. I'm finding nothing.”

  “Uh-huh...” I set down my bottle of faerie juice and put my shoulder to the wall, leaning with my full weight. It slid a little more. “Spun and shaken, I am looking, waiting just...Ah!” I had succeeded in creating a fair-sized crevice in the space. I stepped into it and removed the box that, as I had suspected, was wedged behind the false wall.

  To be honest, I was more or less expecting to find another patch of cobwebs, but in its place was a narrow corridor.

  “Does this place ever run out of surprises?”

  There was a switch on the wall. I tossed it and smaller gas fixtures popped up with fire, covering the path in purple.

  Purple?

  Ah. I get it. Sheets of colored cellophane paper were pasted into specially-crafted lantern boxes. The flickering light shined through these boxes, creating the magnificent purple glow. Gorgeous. I stuck my head at once back into the ship room.

  “Kitt! There's—“

  He was gone, off pursuing greater interests. I frowned and returned to the small passageway.

  The walls were covered with a dark, blue-black velvet, and the floor was lined with fresh carpeting. The lack of consistency in the building was dizzying. A watch shop with a laboratory in the floor. A laboratory with a ship for a room. And now this, some sort of hidden shrine, decorated as if for some church service, or perhaps a funeral. I followed the path, humming to break the silence.

  And at the end of the line...

  Beauty.

  A large glass case sat against the wall, propped...no...wired? The case stood on a platform of rubber-coated bronze. The glass was smooth, curved, and darkly-tinted. Scattered around the entire display was a cluster of candles. They seemed to be arranged very delicately, as if part of a vigil, and each one was half-melted down to its copper candlestick.

  Beauty. For me to even be there, swirling the still air with my breath, seemed blasphemous. I felt like one stepping into some grand, forgotten painting only to smear the aged oils with his boots.

  And yet I could not move.

  Beauty is a tricky thing. You either find it where it hasn't yet fallen dead or you attempt to build it up yourself. For the majority of my life, I had been attempting the latter.

  But at that moment...

  I drew an exaggerated breath and moved towards the glass until I could see my own faint reflection. Slowly, with greatest respect, I reached with my left hand and pressed my palm to it. The glass was cold.

  I smiled.

  And then...heh...looking back, I don't even know how best to say it. The glass slid open, rubbing against my fingers, and from inside there came a figure, a figure resting on pillows and harnesses. Startled, I pulled my hand from the glass and tried to slam it shut. The sliding door bounced back and, slightly shaken, the figure fell forward off of the pedestal into my arms. Unprepared, I collapsed under the weight and together we fell to the floor. Pinned, my breathing hastened. I grabbed and felt something cold and metal and pulled on it for support. I slid my shoulders up from beneath and rested against the nearly wall. Only then did I get a good look at what had fallen into my arms.

  It was a girl.

  Shocked into silence, I twisted my arm back and felt the piece of cold metal in my hand spin with a clank. A soft ticking began.

  And continued.

  Ever.

  So.

  Softly.

  The girl from behind the glass lifted her head at me.

  A deep, shining light poured out of her eyes.

  Chapter Four

  The Girl Behind the Glass

  When I was seven years old, I once went to the theater. This was a complete accident on my part. I was taken with a group of other children by an overzealous schoolteacher who considered it her duty to “enlighten our artistic sensibilities,” a woman of what all I remember, some twenty years later, is that she used to smell of crackers. Anyhow, she was the one who took my hand and clutched and dragged me into a room full of painted faces.

  But I should have never been there, should have never rubbed my little shoes on the worn red carpet. The only reason I did was because my lungs were white.

  The London my parents knew was a self-loathing one. It was thirty years into a guilt trip brought about by the perpetual poisoning of the city's children. “You're darn lucky,” my father used to tell me. “You've never lifted a finger, William.” Children in the country's Black Period were given one hell of a bum deal. Most were workers, plugging along a pre-Alexandrian Industrial Age, scrubbing chimneys and moving factories with their tiny fingers. Then in the 30's, some bright mind decided it should stop, that children should be children.

  Well, if they were rich enough.

  Schools were founded for those that could afford, and those children grew up with a proper education, married, had children of their own, and sent off those children to receive similar education.

  And so the tradition continued, years rolled by, the King eventually found his throne, furthered a national emphasis on schoo
ling, and then I was born. The London of my childhood was a split one, one of workers and one of students. The high class, those children of the wealthy, were immediately enrolled, but crafty Miss Fate took it upon herself to leave a few empty desks that needed to be filled. My father was a merchant, so I found myself on the very thin line between classes. A doctor checked my health and concurred that I might make for a healthy candidate for schooling, pending the color of my lungs.

  The lungs of many children of my class were blackened by breathing in the smoke of industry. The only fair thing, the Alexandrian doctors felt, was to send off those already touched by the smoke to work, their extra hands on task building this steamed city. I was found to be “internally clean” enough to escape such a fate, so I somehow landed myself in a boys' school. How the doctor determined the whiteness of my lungs without cutting me open was never explained to me. I remember the man patted me on the head and said it was one of those “mysteries of modern science” and that he held “a particular clinical knack” for such mysteries.

  I think my father paid him off.

  Whatever the reason, I ended up in a classroom. Despite the grand advancement of science and industry that was building around me, education in my time was focused on “classical works and authors.” The motivation seemed to be on creating young gentlemen before young scholars. I didn't last long in the place.

  But while I was there, there once was a moment when my instructor, my cracker-scented misses, had a moment of fury towards a group of us boys whom she felt were not evoking the spirit of the arts to the right degree, and dragged us out to a failing corner theater.

  The other boys who accompanied me griped nonstop about the trip, because their daddies had taught them that young men of their class should seek out the opera for entertainment. Common theater was best left for the common boys. My teacher casually tossed off their complaints, and on the allotted day, we were shuffled one by one down the street and into the place, a struggling playhouse with a soupy stain on its ceiling. A less than reputable summit for greater learning, but it was easily available and, I now suspect, didn't charge admission for children.