This Monstrous Thing(22)
The landing smarted, but it didn’t truly hurt, and it was so foolish that I laughed. Oliver laughed too, but then he winced, and my smile faded. “You all right?”
He held up his hand. In the splash of the streetlight, I could see that the skin of his palm was torn up and bloody, and there was a raw scrape running up his wrist and into his sleeve.
“Did that happen just now?” I asked, alarmed.
“No, it was . . . from earlier.”
For a moment, I’d forgotten why we’d been out here to begin with, but it came back suddenly. Somewhere between the street and the canal, my anger had left me, floated away like snow on the wind, but I could still feel the weight of it between us. “The policeman said . . . He told me you punched a man. Is that how you hurt your hand?”
“No, that idiot shoved me and I fell on it. Then I punched him.” Oliver blew a foggy breath into the air, then leaned backward until he was lying flat on the ice. I was already shivering, but I stretched out beside him, our heads together, staring up at the splash of stars above us. We didn’t speak for a while. Then Oliver said, “There was this beggar on the street. He had a clockwork leg, but it was run-down and rusted, and his skin was infected. Bloody mess. I tried to help him and some bastard grabbed me and started calling me names and knocked me down. I didn’t attack him, I just fought back. The police didn’t arrest him, though. Just me, because I was helping the clockwork chap.” He pressed his tight fist against the ice. The scrape on his wrist left a smear of pale crimson. “Nothing’s ever that simple, Ally,” he said then. “It’s never just ‘I hit him’ or ‘he hit me’ or he was right and I was wrong. Everything’s always got sides and angles and all sorts of bits you can’t see. Nothing’s ever the way it looks straight on.”
I fell asleep remembering that—lying beside Oliver on the iced canal, our breath frosty and warm as it drifted up and away from us into that black, black night.
I woke suddenly, like an impact from a high fall. The fire had died to pulsing coals, and the sky outside was black. I climbed out of bed, flinching as my bare feet connected with the cold floorboards, and cupped my hands against the window to look out. The snow had swelled into a blizzard, and thick white flakes obscured the yard. I could hardly make out Geisler’s workshop through it.
I dressed in the dark, not certain why I was up so early, or whether it was actually early or simply dark from the storm. The gutted clocks on the mantelpiece were still stuck at the same time they had been the day before and gave me no clue. So, dressed in one of the large university uniforms Geisler had left, I abandoned my room to see if anyone else was awake.
The house was dark and silent but for the syncopated clicking of dozens of clocks. At the bottom of the stairs, I spotted a light and followed it to the kitchen, where a fire was burning in the grate. A loaf of bread was laid out on the table, a knife stuck into the cutting board next to it. My stomach growled audibly.
I wiggled the knife out of the board and started to saw off a slice of bread when something knocked into me from behind. I whipped around, knife held in front of me. It was one of the automatons, its arm outstretched, coming toward me. I tried to dodge out of its way, but it knocked into me again so hard that I fell backward into the table. The legs screeched against the stone floor. The automaton took another shuffling step closer, and I considered burying the knife in it and hoping that jammed up its works, but stabbing servants—mechanical or not—didn’t seem like the appropriate way to repay Geisler for taking me in.
The automaton’s head twisted slowly until its glassy eyes were fixed on the knife in my hand. My grip on the handle tightened. “Like hell,” I said, though I wasn’t certain it understood. “You may not have this.”
The automaton reached out. I tried to duck out of its way, but its hand fastened around my fist holding the knife and squeezed. I yelped in pain as my fingers buckled beneath its iron grip.
There was a whoosh as a door on the other side of the room opened, blowing in a handful of snowflakes and Clémence, wearing the same trousers and gray coat from the day before. Her white hair was fuzzy with snow. She stared across the room at me, bent backward over the table by the advancing automaton that I was certain was about to rip me to pieces with the knife it was trying to break out of my hand.
And she laughed. “You’ve got to let it slice the bread.”
“What?” The automaton took another step forward, knees cracking against mine, and I flinched.
“It wants to serve you—that’s what it’s made for. It won’t back off until you let it cut the bread.”
“Are you certain that’s all it’s keen on cutting?” I asked.
Clémence flopped down beside the fire and raised her hands to the flames. “Never mind. Let it break your fingers if you want.”
I glared at the back of her head, then loosened my grip on the bread knife so that it slid from my fingers to the automaton’s. The mechanical man straightened immediately, and I wiggled out from between it and the table as it took a lurching step toward the bread and began to saw at it. When it had a slice, the automaton pivoted sharply and extended it to me.
I took it. “Er, thank you.”
Its spine snapped straight, then it turned and headed out of the room, each step ticking.
Clémence was watching me with her mouth twisted up in that stupid smirk. I glowered at her, then sank down in front of the fire and started to eat. The automaton had scared the hunger straight out of me, but I had gone to too much trouble to get the bread not to eat it.