House Of Shadows

He left. She jumped up and dressed quickly, blood pounding in her veins. She wasn’t sure if it was fear of him or guilt at oversleeping, but she ignored it and moved quickly. She went to the kitchen to take the stairs that led down to the cellar and was surprised to see Carrick standing at the counter, eating.

“Come. Eat,” he said, barely turning to look at her. She went and stood next to him. He held out a steaming cup of coffee for her and she grabbed it greedily and took a sip. He was eating johnnycakes. She lifted one from the basket, smeared it with butter and took a bite. It was warm and buttery.

“Tell me, Miss Heatherton,” he said, between bites, “how it is you came to the agency?”

Her stomach dropped when he mentioned the agency and she spoke quickly, trying to change the subject. “Please, my name is Penrose. But everyone calls me Penny. If you want me to call you Carrick, I’d like the same.”

“Penny it is, then,” he said, and took a swig of his coffee. “Penrose. A prominent name around here. How did you come by that as a given name?”

She froze, johnnycake in midair. She wanted to lie. It was right at the tip of her tongue, yet when she opened her mouth, the truth came tumbling out. “My father was a Penrose.”

“I see. Skeletons in the proverbial closet, then? Since the family name is your first name and not your last, I’ll ask how come he tossed over your mother?”

For some reason, his harsh tone didn’t bother her. Nobody spoke plainly about this subject. It was a refreshing change and she found that more truths came forward. “My mother was an abolitionist.”

He made a strange noise and spit coffee out of his mouth. He laughed, hunched over next to the counter. Finally he regained his composure. “A Penrose and an abolitionist? Now that’s funny. They are the most painfully backward family on God’s good planet Earth. So, was your mother able to sway him to her point of view?”

“No. Then he died in battle right before the end of the Civil War. Just before I was born.”

“Hearts and beliefs are the two hardest things to change. You were born at an interesting time. You were born before or after the Civil War ended?”

“More than that, I was born on the very last day of the war. At midnight, in fact. My mother said that they had to choose what day to pick as my birthday. Obviously, my mother chose after the war.”

He went completely still. “My, my, my. A midnight baby, and on the last day of the war? The very last minute? You’re doubly cursed, Penny. Can’t you see it? One foot on the bright side of freedom and one foot in the shameful past. A suspicious mind might say you’re destined to live two lives.”

There was something sinister about him standing there—easy as you please—talking about curses. “I wouldn’t dare believe in such nonsense. I’m a practical sort.” But her words sounded forced, a bit too high.

“Are you, now?”

She nodded and took a bite of the corn bread. Silence fell over the room.

A few minutes later, he spoke up. “Ready to work?”

They walked down the stairs. This house had so many stairways, she thought to herself. The foyer. The attic. The kitchen. It was as if the house intended for people to get lost in it. Cool air rising from the cellar swirled around her as she followed him the last few steps into the workshop, looked around and struggled to keep her chin from dropping to the floor.

She couldn’t take even one more step. Not one. The room was simply too much to absorb. She could only stand and stare dumbly. It wasn’t so much the space. Oh, it was impressive—cavernous, cool and dark, with high ceilings and a fireplace big enough to stand it. It was more the feel of the room. Expectation hung in the air, with the sharp smells of woodsmoke and oil. Every inch of the floor was crammed with odds and ends, books, piles of gleaming metal bits, cords, tubes, wires and tools. She felt as though she’d entered a deep and secret mine where magical things could be wrenched free.

Her entire life had been orderly. Downtrodden, perhaps, but orderly. Their little home had been converted to a humble finishing school, the kind the middle-class folks sent their daughters to. She grew up amid books that were neatly shelved and papers that were always stacked neatly. There was the feeling of possibility in the school, too—and it felt wonderfully familiar. But the school had provided an orderly process of discoveries. This room was chaos. She wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“It used to be the kitchen,” Carrick said, walking to the fireplace and tossing a handful of tinder into it. He struck a match and threw it onto the wood. A flame blazed to life. He fanned it, sending a hiss and spray of sparks into the air. “When my project outgrew the library, I moved the kitchen upstairs and took over this room.” He gathered some logs and fed them to the growing blaze. Even though it was high summer, the cellar was chilly, so she welcomed the heat.

Carrick walked about the room lighting lamps and candles. He handed a candle to Penrose, and she helped him with the rest. He continued, “The problem with this room is the lack of light. I have lamps on all the walls, but the large open space where I do my work needs even more light.”

A schematic of the human body hung on one wall. Another had a large calendar. And then she saw what had scared her silly earlier—the wooden beings slumped in their chairs. Her heart stopped, she swore it did, and she brought her hand to her chest to feel its beat before relaxing a bit. What did he do with them?

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“Of course.”

He continued, “Though lamplight is fine, the direct brightness affects my eyes. I prefer candles close by. You’ll be making candles for me. I require special ones.”

“I see,” she said, making a mental note to arrive early and have the workroom lit and ready for him.

He gestured toward the center of the room, where a huge work area made up of many tables pushed together formed a half circle. In the center of the tables, something large bulged from underneath a blanket. Whatever it was, it was larger than a man and twice as wide.

Approaching, she held the candle in the air. “What is it?” she asked, unable to hide the wonder in her voice.

Carrick stood behind her. She neither heard his approach nor felt his presence, so when he spoke, it startled her. He stood inches away. “That is the future. A mechanical man.” He held up his candle. “Go ahead, pull the blanket off.”

She bent down, yanked the blanket away, and the mechanical man stood before her. She blinked and looked up. He was tall, taller than Carrick, taller than any man she’d ever seen. He had a barrel chest, a boxy head and two small lanterns that served as eyes. Wide shoulders sat atop his torso and rivets ran up and down his body like buttons. He resembled a metallic boxer, stout and strong, his skin glistening silver-orange in the firelight.

“What does he do?” she asked in awe. “Can he even move?”

“Anything you want,” Carrick said with pride. “Within reason, of course.”

He seemed to burst with life. He seemed solid. Dependable. But there was something threatening about a heap of metal sculpted into the shape of a human. Some inner part of her recoiled. Not a big part, but enough of a part to steal her words for a few moments as she took in the sight of him. Him. Funny that she thought of it in such familiar terms already.

“Just like in those paperback novels,” she said. She’d once read a scary story about a man who built a steam-powered person and then attached him to a buggy. The man walked across the entire country step by step. When they reached Kansas, the steam-powered man went haywire and killed the man who had created him. That was fiction. She now stood before the real thing, and she wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse about it.

“Yes. Just like in those fanciful stories. Except this one is real.” She’d almost forgotten about Carrick. Almost. But the he stood close enough behind her that when he spoke she could feel the air from his breath on the back of her neck.

“How do you give him life?” she asked. “How do you do that?” It was the thousand-dollar question in her mind. She whispered the next word. “Magic?”

He laughed harshly. “Is that what you heard?”

“Perhaps.”

“And what do you think of the things you’ve heard?”

“You’re not paying me to think about what I’ve heard.” She turned, forcing her eyes to meet his and hold his gaze. “That’s what I think.”

“You’re either very clever or very hungry.”

“Or both.”

“Are you as prim and proper as you look?” The tone of his voice changed in that instant. It grew deep and mellow, almost dreamy. But not soothing. Not by a Georgia mile.

She stood stiff, aware of the length of his body right behind hers. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to. She could feel the heat from his body as surely as she could from the fire in front of her. “Now, you tell me. Do you like to be judged by the way you look?”

“Touché, Miss Heatherton.”

“Penny. Call me Penny.”

His lips graced the tender spot behind her ear. “Penny,” he whispered, saying the name so low that it came not as a sound but as a rumble against her skin. Then he was gone, the hard strike of his boots ringing out on the stone. She was left with a wave of cool air. He strode in front of her to the mechanical man. “Does he scare you?”

“Yes. He makes me nervous. It’s a feeling I can’t describe. But I’m drawn to him,” she answered, unsure if she was referring to the mechanical man or to him.

He was quiet. “Some quake in their shoes when they see him,” he finally said.