This Monstrous Thing(2)

“There won’t be.” I dropped the sling of spanners into my bag, careful to avoid the stack of books nestled in the bottom, and turned to meet his frown. “Can I go now?”

“Where are you rushing off to?”

I swallowed hard to push back the dread that bubbled up inside me when I thought of it, but I had put it off for the last three days—longer than I should have. “Does it matter?”

“Your mother and I need you home tonight.”

“Because of the Christmas market.”

“No. We need you for . . .” He pushed his spectacles onto his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because of what day it is.”

My hand tightened on the strap of my bag. “You thought I forgot?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“How could I forget that today’s—”

He cut me off with a sigh, the weary, heavy sort I’d heard him use so many times on Oliver but now belonged just to me. I know, I wanted to say, your older son was a disappointment, and now your younger son is even worse. But I kept my mouth shut. “Just be home on time tonight, please, Alasdair. And put your coat on before you go out into the shop, you’ve got grease all over your front.”

“Thank you.” I swept the rest of my tools and the set of pulse gloves into my bag, then picked my way across the workshop toward the door. There were no windows, and the flickering shadows cast by the oil lamps made the room seem smaller and more cluttered than it was. My breakfast dishes from the morning were still stacked on the chair where clients usually sat, and my teacup had tipped over so the dregs soaked into the worn cushion. There were gears and bolts everywhere, and a layer of rusty shavings coated the floor like bloody snow.

“French in the shop,” Father called to me as I pulled my coat on.

“I know.”

“No English. You sound more Scottish than you think, especially when you and your mother get going. Anyone could overhear you.”

“Sorry. Désolé.” I paused for a moment in the doorway, waiting for the rest of the lecture, but he seemed finished. He was still staring at that damn center wheel with his hands folded, and I wondered if he’d switch it out while I was gone. He’d get a pinched finger if he tried, and it’d serve him right for doubting me. I turned and headed down the short corridor that led to the shop.

The workshop door couldn’t be opened from inside—Father had rigged up that precaution after Oliver opened the hidden door in our shop in Amsterdam when there were nonmechanical customers out front. I gave a light tap and waited. There was a pause, then a woosh of air as the door chugged open.

After all morning shut up in the workshop, the winter sunlight through the front windows nearly knocked me over, and I had to blink hard a few times before the toys lining the walls came into proper focus. “Come in quick,” Mum said, and I stepped past her as she threw her shoulder against the door and it eased back into place with a piston hiss, leaving the wall behind the counter looking again like a shelf stacked with dollhouse furniture.

Mum wiped her hands off on her apron, leaving a smear of plaster dust from the door, then looked me up and down. She was dark haired, same as I was, and thin as my father, but I could remember a time when she hadn’t been. The last few years had carved her out. “Goggles,” she said, pointing to the magnifying lenses slung around my neck. As I shoved them under my shirt collar, she added, “And you’ve got grease on your face.”

“Where?”

“Sort of ”—she gestured in a circle with her hand—“everywhere.”

I scrubbed my sleeve across my cheeks. “Better?”

“It’ll do until you wash up properly. Did you get Morand’s arm finished?”

“Yes.” I decided not to mention the spat over the center wheel. “Don’t let Father hear you speaking English.”

“Is he in one of his moods about it?”

“Isn’t he usually?” I did my best imitation of Father. “Nous sommes Genevois. Nous parlons fran?ais.”

She picked up the interior of a gutted music box and the set of jeweler’s pliers beside it. “Well, he can say it all he wants, doesn’t change the fact we aren’t Swiss, same as we weren’t French when we lived in Paris.”

“Or Dutch in Amsterdam,” I added, adjusting the strap of my bag as I turned.

“Hold up, where are you going? I’ve got something for you.”

I stopped halfway to the door. “Just an errand.”

“This late? It’s nearly supper.”

“It’s for the Christmas market,” I lied, then added quickly, “What have you got for me?”

She fished a wrapped package from the mess strewn across the counter and held it up. “It came this morning.”

I’d never gotten a letter in my life, let alone a package, and I took it curiously. There was a London port-of-origin stamp in one corner, and across the front was my name in thick, loopy handwriting that caught me under the chin and zapped me like an electric shock from the pulse gloves. “Bleeding hell.”

Mum frowned. “Don’t cuss.”

“Sorry.”

She poked hard at the pin drum with the tip of her pliers. “How’d I end up with two boys who cussed like sailors? We didn’t teach you that.”