Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times (5 page)

It was daft to have no lamps, no electric lights. Surely people must come here, clockmakers to set the time and sweeps with their brooms to clear out the dust, even if
the lords in their fancy coats were too busy.

“Hello?” He tried again, but there was no sound, no footsteps, no inconvenient sneeze of someone trying to stay quiet.

The number of times he’d had to pinch his nose to keep his soul in so that he’d make no noise while peering through the parlor keyhole . . .

His face bashed into something very hard, and he said a word for which Mrs. Pond would have given him a proper hiding if she’d been there to hear it. Rubbing his forehead with one hand, Jack flailed about with the other.

The door handle was cold and solidly real in his hand. He turned it. Light began to seep in to the dark room, courtesy of slit-thin windows slashed high in the walls of a square staircase that climbed and climbed into the sky, with small landings on each floor.

Mrs. Pond would still be gossiping with her friend, Wilson chasing urchins away from the horses. It could not be so very high, and if Mr. Havelock was up there, which he must be for there was nowhere else to go, he would be most impressed by Jack’s persistence. That, and Jack’s magic, for he had opened the door.

“Such talent!” he’d marvel. “Such a special boy I must have to train, and we won’t take no for an answer this time!”

The first hundred steps—Jack counted in his head—were easy enough. Then his chest began to burn, making him wish he’d put more effort into games at school, the way the fat games master always shouted at him to.

Up he went, stopping every now and then to breathe, to listen, to test doors that stayed resolutely locked. He thought he could just hear the ticking of the clock, but it could simply be his own heartbeat.

When he certainly must’ve risen to the stars, a door stood open off the stairs, and his wheezy gasps ceased altogether.

Oh, oh, it was a wondrous thing, better than any gramophone or stinking piano. Every polished gear spun smooth, wheels and pinions oiled, one against another, and the whole thing bigger than Jack himself, bigger than ten of him.

It must be heaps of fun to be a clockmaker,
Jack thought. He’d read a very thick book about that, as well.

Tick. Tick. Tick
,
it commanded to the clock hands you could see from half of London if you tried.

Other than this, the room was entirely still, as if such a grand clock had stolen even the time it took for a dust mote to float across a sunbeam, needing every minute, every second it could find.

But there were no sunbeams. Beyond the high windows, there was only gray. A raindrop hit. Another. Another.

Oh,
blast.

Jack fairly flew down the stairs, fast as he could without falling, which would do nobody any good.

Mrs. Pond would be
furious.
Such a hiding he’d never seen, surely, and any minute now the great bell would begin to mark the quarter hour, and he’d been gone far too long.

She’d be looking for him to get out of the rain, back into the carriage and home. He could not even say he’d been following Mr. Havelock, who was nowhere to be found, or that the magician made a door appear just where he’d needed one. She would say he was telling tales.

Little boys who wanted their dinner did not tell tales.

Dizzied, he landed at the door to the dark room, and the most terrible thoughts filled his topsy head. What if he couldn’t see to make the door? What if it wouldn’t appear for him at all?

Well, Mrs. Pond’d have a right time punishing him if he stayed shut up in here forever, so that might not be the worst of things.

Besides, there must be another way out, for the lords and clockmakers and sweeps, ordinary folks unable to wish a door into a wall.

And then disappear.

Jack needn’t have worried. After a good bit of fumbling,
he found not only the wall where the door had been, but a handle. Apparently, on this side it pretended to be a real door, but there wasn’t much chance to think about that just at the moment. He yanked it open and stepped into a wall of rain.

He was soaked by the time he got to the slippery cobbles, wetter still at the garden gates. “Mrs. Pond!” he yelled into an enormous thunderclap. “Effie!” Which was horribly rude.

No answer came. There was nobody at all, for the rain had cleared the park and the streets around. No carriages or motorcars clogged the entrance to the bridge. Even the ships were just ghostly outlines, decks empty and slick.

His teeth chattered. Water sluiced in his ruined shoes. He could hear Mrs. Pond’s voice in his head. “Come inside,” it said. “You’ll catch your death.” She was full of odd expressions Jack never understood. Death wasn’t a thing you could trap like an animal.

Quite suddenly, Jack felt enormously alone. It was hard to think, with his brain frozen by cold.

“Wilson!” Wilson would stay. Mrs. Pond would get out of the wet, but Wilson, cap pulled down to his ears, would stay with the horses. Jack simply couldn’t see them because they were around a corner, sheltered below a low eave.

Of course. That made sense. His schoolmasters were great
ones for things making sense. It just took a bit of thinking.

The rain slowed as Jack made his way along the path, toward the spot where he and Mrs. Pond had left Wilson an age ago. How long, Jack wasn’t sure. The clock had surely chimed, its peals swallowed by the storm, but he didn’t know when.

A last, stubborn raindrop fell with a
splat
on the top of his head as Jack passed back through the gates and onto the road.

He looked around, squinted, rubbed the water from his eyes.

But the streets were still empty.

•  •  •

After the rain, the city glistened darkly, a forest of chimneys and gables. Black slurry crawled down the gutters. Overhead, a bird gave an experimental, tinny chirp.

The enormity of what he’d done began to weigh on Jack, a coat stitched of fear and stuffed with worry.

He must find a constable or a well-dressed lady to help him find Mrs. Pond, or take him to his father’s offices. A hiding didn’t feel so much of a frightening thing as it had before.

A man stood on the next corner, one gloved hand on the handle of a walking stick. His topper was frayed but had clearly been fine once, as had his dusty coat and leather boots that now caved at the heels.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Jack.

The man jumped. “I say!” he said, facing Jack.

Jack jumped, too, for the man’s face was a terrific, terrible sight. It would have been quite normal were it not for the tiny brass grille set into his oversized nostrils. Jack had never seen such a thing. Tiny clasps held it to skin that was a sickly pale, and he had eyes like runny eggs.

“What are you staring at?” he demanded, adjusting his hold on his walking stick. Jack couldn’t quite tell what the handle was, something made of cogs and hinges and bits of brass, half-concealed by a velvet glove that sagged, as if within it the hand were only bone.

“N-nothing, sir,” said Jack. “I was just—”

“Lung complaint,” snapped the man. “Don’t goggle as if you’ve never seen such a thing.”

“I’m sorry. That’s a fine walking stick, sir. May I see it?”

The man didn’t let it go, but moved his grip so’s Jack could get a proper look. The handle was some kind of bird, wings formed of gears and spread so that a hand could rest between them. Its mouth was open in song. Jack had never seen anything like it.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“Hmmm.” He peered at Jack, who could hear the air snorting through the grille, taking in his sodden clothes.
“Brave thing, being out in the rain. Youngsters don’t have two thoughts to rub together.”

“Could you point me to Mayfair?” Jack asked. “Please. If it’s not too much trouble.”

The top hat wobbled and slipped down. The runny eyes slid up and down the street from under the brim. “Mayfaer?” The man pronounced it oddly, but accents were twelve a penny. “You’re a long way from home, lad. Unless that’s not where you live?” He took in Jack’s somewhat disheveled appearance. “Think there might be good pickings up there, do you?” Air wheezed in and out of the grille, the man’s chest rising, falling, rising.

“No! I live there.
Sir.
That is, my parents do.”

“Hmmm.” He jabbed with his walking stick. “Thataway. ’Long the walk, y’see. You’ll be wanting to head through the park—fastest way on foot. Turn at the birdcage. There’s carriages round about, but I don’t imagine a young ruffian such as yourself has any coin, do you?”

Jack’s pockets were empty save for the compass. The morning at the outfitters with Mrs. Pond felt long ago, far away.

“Do you know the time?” Jack asked. The man tilted his strange face up, eyes squinting at the clock tower across the road. They looked as if they were being eaten by his face.

“Not a clue. Daft thing hasn’t worked in weeks.”

“Yes, it has.” Jack stared at the man. Perhaps he was addled. “Sorry, sir. Thank you very much.”

“You’re very . . . pink,” said the man.

There was nothing much to say to that, and the man was certainly addled. Jack left him standing there, still leaning on the stick, snorting through metal.

What an odd thing that was. The work of one of the Harley Street doctors, no doubt, though Jack wondered what kind of problem would cause them to do
that
.

Jack hurried, head down, watching his feet, and so he did not see. More clouds threatened on the horizon, but for the moment it was dry. Doors opened. From the corner of his eye, he caught one of the new motorcars pull to a stop at the curb, but there was no time to stop and admire it. He ran, leaving the gardens and the tower and the Palace of Westminster behind him, curious stares brushing over him, unnoticed as a breeze.

And so he did not see.

•  •  •

The road was wide, sweeping, overhung with spindly trees whose branches spat unwanted rain. Long, low buildings lined one side, and on the other, a sprawling park carpeted in limp, wet grass. None of it was especially familiar to Jack, but he thought he remembered which park it was, the splotch on a map his father kept.

Jack turned onto a path in sore need of repair, slabs chipped, their edges crumbling.

Ahead, just before the path curved out of sight, a gazebo sat raised above the lawns, and indeed it looked, from a distance, like an ornate birdcage.

Someone was inside it, her back to him, long hair pinned in elaborate curls. Jack hurried, boots slipping on the wet ground. She might give better directions than “Thataway.”

“Excuse me, miss!” Good impressions were important. She would want to help this polite young man, soaked and cold, clearly eager to get home. “Excuse me,” he said again, stepping closer when she appeared not to have heard him the first time.

Still, she did not turn. Raindrops bounced off the gilded cage in which she stood, dry beneath the domed brass roof. Beside it now, Jack found a small set of steps leading inside. “Hello?” he asked quietly, so as not to frighten her, but loud enough that she could hear him over the
thump-thump
of rain, which was louder than he’d expected, amplified by the metal.

Her face was smooth, eyes glassy, lashes long and curled. Like a doll, thought Jack, though he knew little of such things. Dolls were for girls, or so Father always said. Jack had his set of toy soldiers, but those weren’t dolls; they were an army. Certainly they didn’t wear lace dresses or silly shoes or blue ribbons in their hair.

“Can you hear me?” Jack asked, wondering if there was something wrong with her that caused the strange, blank expression. Or perhaps all girls were like that. The only one Jack knew was his cousin Susan, who liked to poke him with sticks and run away.

The girl opened her mouth. “I . . . ,” she began. Jack waited. “I . . . ,” she said again. As he watched, the most curious thing happened: Her mouth closed, opened, and closed once more. Her arms dropped limply to her sides, and her eyelids slid down, shutting with a
click
, just before
her head lolled to the front, those ribbons blowing in the wind.

“Are you ill?”

One of her fingers twitched. He stepped closer, unsure what he was supposed to do if she
was
ill. At school, the matron was sent for. At home, a doctor would come with a black leather bag full of steel and gauze.

Around the birdcage, the wind picked up, howling like a kicked dog. A gust blew, ruffling the girl’s dress, making the ribbons shiver as her hair blew away from her neck to show the key hidden there.

Jack stared. He thought of the soldiers, lined up in rows on a shelf in his bedroom.

“Why,” he whispered, “you’re a windup girl, and not a real girl at all.”