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  “No. I have work to do, and you are much too animated today to allow me to complete it.”

  I soon heard the sound of keys in the door and watched as Schuyler walked through it.

  “You require something, Doctor Godspeed?” Schuyler inquired, clearly concerned that he'd been so summoned.

  “Yes. I require you to escort this young woman back to her room, by way of the entire rest of the house.”

  Schuyler blinked in confusion. “Quinn?”

  “She understands her location relative to the shop and the house, Schuyler. The cat is out of the bag, you might as well feed it.” He blinked quickly himself a time or two, a thought clearly occurring to him. “While you're at it, see to it that you feed your cat.”

  “My cat? The thing won't even acknowledge me, Quinn. That former stray is all yours.”

  Quinn took up his book and pen once more and sank heavily into the large chair at his desk, rocking slowly in it as he began to write.

  Schuyler sighed. Clearly the conversation was, from Quinn's perspective, over and done with.

  “Very well, then, young woman. It seems that you've earned yourself the tour. We should get it underway before you succumb once again to fatigue.”

  There was little chance of that now, I thought.

  My mood and my energy level both changed as I realized this could be my opportunity to continue my line of questioning with someone who may be much more inclined to actually answer.

  “Thank you, kind sir. I shall follow where you lead.”

  He reached down and took hold of the handle of the box that sat beside me, the box tethered to me at all times, except during the blissful escape of sleep. “Then lead on, I shall.”

  CHAPTER 13

  SCHUYLER ALGERNON GUIDED ME up through a narrow passageway, spiraling staircase, and out into the kitchen. Without much of interest there, we did not linger, though I did pause by the large picture window to stare outside in disbelief for a moment.

  The sun had begun to set and lit the sky aflame; brilliant pinks, purples and a wash of elegant blue just the color of Quinn's eyes. I was filled with emotion as its majesty overwhelmed me.

  The outside world seemed a mythical thing to me now; something that existed for others, not for me. As I looked out into it for a moment, I shivered and began to shake, realizing just how little out there, for all it held, meant anything to me.

  All that mattered to me in the world was, at this moment, levels below the floor upon which I stood. Pen flying across paper as quickly as his hand could carry it, writing who knew what. Whatever it was, I was certain that it was technical, mechanical, and not at all relative to the fact that I even existed. He was not keeping a diary of thoughts or emotions, he was keeping detailed records of his work, and I am sure that was all he viewed me as; a work to be completed, then sent out into the world to survive on its own.

  “You must stay away from the window, child,” Schuyler admonished, shooing me back toward the exit. “No one on the outside can be allowed to see you here.”

  I nodded, glancing up at him and then down apologetically as we moved on.

  “Do not look so sad. I only meant to remind, not rebuke.”

  I followed him as he pointed out a door down the hallway from the kitchen. “That is the entrance to the shop. There are still customers in it now, so I cannot take you in. If you like, I could let you see it later, when it is closed.”

  “I would like that, thank you, sir. I would love to see the windows. I used to love to…” My voice trailed off with the memory of my father and I walking hand in hand down the streets in town near the Argents’ home, looking at the pretty displays in the shop windows.

  “Used to what?”

  “On Sundays, sometimes, my father and I would admire shop windows. I would wager yours are beautiful.”

  “Perhaps you can help me think of ways to make them even better,” he said with a smile. I tried to smile back, but my mind was still fixed entirely upon other matters.

  After the way Quinn had reacted, I hesitated to take up my questions again now, but curiosity was a difficult taskmaster and impossible to deny, so I continued.

  “The boy, the one who lives here…”

  “How do you know that he lives here?” Schuyler turned on his heel and stared at me, a hand perched on one hip and frustration upon his face. “I never told you that.”

  Once again, I had let my tongue run ahead of my brain and gotten myself into trouble. “I am sorry, Mister Algernon—”

  “Schuyler, Schuyler, Schuyler!” he repeated. Seeing how I winced involuntarily at the tone he'd taken, he softened it, but only a little. “I have told you, I would prefer it if you called me by my given name instead of that unfeeling title.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He sighed. “We'll work on it. Which brings me to the point once again, I still don't know by what name it is that I should address you.”

  I looked downward, completely silent.

  “It would seem we all have things we need to keep for ourselves, don't we? Just so that we know that we are still in control of something.”

  I raised apologetic eyes toward him. “It is not about needing control, sir—”

  “Schuyler!”

  “Schuyler,” I corrected myself before continuing. “It is simply that it doesn't matter.”

  He looked at me sympathetically. “The life you lived before you arrived here must have exacted too high a price of your soul, young woman, for you to still believe — after all the time and attention that Doctor Godspeed has put into saving your life — that you still do not matter.”

  “I do not mean to seem ungrateful.”

  “You don't. Just very sad.” He sighed again. “Back to the matter at hand, young lady, I never told you that the boy you met in the laboratory lived here. How did you find that out? Has he paid you another visit of which I am unaware?”

  “No.” I bit my lip and the look on my face gave everything away.

  “Damn. That means that Godspeed must know you saw him.” Schuyler tapped the toe of his boot.

  “He doesn't know that I saw him in the laboratory. It was a slip of the tongue that I'd seen him, to be sure, but I never said that the boy came into the laboratory to see what was there. I said I had seen him, and it is lucky for me that the boy does live here because the Doctor assumed that I'd seen him here. I did not wish to cause trouble for the boy, so I did not correct that assumption.”

  “Thank you. That was kind of you to look out for him, and for me.”

  “It was nothing.”

  He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling as if imploring heaven to hear. “Please, let him become too preoccupied with his work to question me about the matter, so that will be the end of it.”

  I teetered a little on my feet, growing tired, and Schuyler seemed to grow weary of carrying the weight of the box as well and eager to finish our tour. “Shall we move on? You must be exhausted now.”

  I nodded and followed him onward, and we found ourselves in the red room where I had opened my eyes for the first time to see him watching over me.

  The red room, which would under normal circumstances in a normal home — neither of which applied here — be called the sitting room.

  As I made my way back through it now, I walked slowly and carefully. I took in again each of the paintings on the walls. This time I also noted sculptures and tapestries, as fine as any I had seen in museums during my childhood on those Sundays when my father would take me on outings.

  It was nearly impossible to believe this was the same room in which I had first looked into Quinn's eyes, as the life faded from mine by the second and I feared I would never see the light of day again.

  Yet, from the moment I first peered into the depths of those eyes, I feared no longer that I would die, but that I might live and never find the faintest glimmer of emotion in them when I walked into a room.

  “Such a beautiful place.”

  “It has cha
racter. Like the people who generally visit it.” He widened his eyes at me and then winked. “You may or may not have noticed before that there is a balcony, through doors behind those curtains.” He gestured in the general direction. “I wish I could allow you out there to enjoy the view and a breath of fresh air, but not only can't I risk you being seen, the view is actually one very few people enjoy.”

  I was curious. “Oh? Why is that?”

  “It's a view of the adjacent cemetery.”

  He had apparently forgotten that the room that they called mine boasted the very same sight. Lest he forbid me to look out of that window as well, I simply nodded and sought to change the subject. “May I ask a question, please?”

  “Of course, my dear. Though I must warn you that I might not always be able to give you an answer, you may always ask.”

  “At times, when I was half awake and half dreaming in the laboratory, I thought that I heard music. Was it a delusion?”

  “It was not. The piano is played on a fairly regular basis.”

  “By whom?” I wondered if the good Doctor, or Schuyler himself, possessed any musical ability.

  “A friend.” Schuyler said, his intentional vagueness a warning to me that now was the time to give up asking any more questions for the day. Still, I could not stop myself from asking a last one before I relented.

  “One thing more.”

  Schuyler sighed as he moved onward now, and held the door to the hall open once again.

  “If you must.”

  “Where does Doctor Godspeed live?”

  “Inside his head,” Schuyler answered simply. Without another word he moved away, forcing me to follow in order to protect the tenuous connection between my body and the box that powered my continued existence.

  CHAPTER 14

  I FELL INTO A FITFUL SLUMBER soon after. I was troubled by questions and doubts that played upon my mind as I slept. Nightmare images of what had been done to me, and how dependent upon the mechanical I had become, visited me time and again.

  Sometimes I would dream of the pain alone and would wake in a fever, gasping for air and terrified of what would happen next.

  Most nights the exhaustion forced me back into sleep and usually the much better kind, without the trouble of unconscious thought.

  This night, however, when I dreamed of the pain it was all too real, even after I opened my eyes.

  It was a shock when the door to my room flew open and Godspeed rushed toward me. He did not even take the listening scope to my chest before he picked me up off of sheets soaked from fever. He carried me straight down to the laboratory, sparing no time to reconnect me to the box.

  I scarcely remember that dark, haunted time.

  Infection had set in, and recovery was never assured. Days went by in increments, either too fast to be recalled or too slow to be believed.

  The doctor stayed by my side constantly, talking to Schuyler as he would come in and out at intervals, or talking to himself under the guise of talking to me when I was either too delirious or weak with drug to understand.

  My life degenerated into a continual process of trial and error over which I had no control. Quinn spoke to me, in my more lucid moments, of the medicines taking hold to heal me, then of the different sorts of power sources he had tried to regulate the voltage to the unholy contraption he affixed to my chest.

  There were tense evenings, when I would hear the doctor and Schuyler argue, but was mostly unable to make out the words they hurled at each other in their anger.

  During the course of these quarrels, doors were often slammed; sometimes glass was broken. I tried to focus my eyes toward the direction their voices carried from, but all I could see was the dark, impregnable wood paneling on the walls.

  How this was possible, I didn't understand. Their voices were close by, but I was unable to determine their exact location.

  One very late night, after yet another surgical procedure had required the doctor use the strongest methods at his disposal to sedate me, my curiosity was further piqued.

  I awoke to find Schuyler had suddenly appeared at my side, though I was absolutely certain that the door had neither opened nor closed.

  Still, I could barely spare the strength to wonder, as it was all I could do most of the time simply to keep drawing one breath after another. I had to learn to live all over again with the violent, intense thumping that substituted for my own diluted heartbeat.

  Finally the fever relented, and I was returned to my room to sleep a few hours each night.

  I awoke with the sound of birds and turned toward the newly dawning springtime, and I yearned for the warmth of it upon my face.

  * * *

  My strength soon rallied.

  It was by far the happiest spring I had ever known, even if I could only appreciate the newly budding blooms in the shimmering glow of prevailing moonlight as I peeked through heavy, drawn curtains.

  He was near, and that was all that mattered.

  For at least a few moments every day, he was so close I could almost touch him, and when he was, there was nothing more in the world I could have wanted or asked for.

  He spoke to me as if I was worth taking notice of, and I longed for our talks, no matter how short they may be.

  In his company, I saw myself as a different person. I was no longer the servant's child, born and destined to take up the same humble work of my parents’ hands and of their parents as well. It was not that I thought I was too good for it — on the contrary, I had never imagined myself suited to anything else, let alone ‘better’, as the world would so unkindly describe it.

  It was that he automatically gave me credit, from very early on, as one possessing a mind that did not need to be talked down to. He did not, even when he could tell I hadn't the faintest idea what he was saying, bend his words to an easier frame in order to suit what he considered my intellectual deficits.

  Rather, he took the time to explain to me in great detail the meaning of each term, each word, each idea, and how they were all tangled together — especially when it came to those ideas of his that were, in reality, tangled up with the very heart beating in my chest.

  On the night when I first asked for him to explain to me, to really, truly explain to me what it was he'd done to prolong my life, he initially directed my attention to the mantle above the fireplace in his laboratory.

  This was the first time my gaze settled upon an elaborate Four Hundred Days Clock, all gears and winding golden parts, turning first one way then the other as the hands ticked away the time… time I was content to spend listening to him talk about anything at all in the world, just so I could continue to hear the sound of his voice.

  He took the clock down from the shelf and placed it on the table before me, where my eyes watched the ornate crystal findings grasp hold of and relinquish the light at will, refracting beautifully vibrant colors on the walls, and even upon the bodice of my dress; illuminating the metal of the ‘clockwork box’ device he had created and modified just for me.

  “What is a heart if not the ultimate clockwork?” he murmured, intensely focused upon the intricate machinery of the timepiece. He closed his eyes, seemingly taken far away from his current location as he whispered, why he felt the question was complete and no more explanation was required. “After all, it is the singular mechanism that keeps the ticking time of the soul.”

  I realized this was not the first time I had heard him say those words. He had said them in my presence before, when I was only barely conscious and perceiving what little I could process going on around me through the nearly impenetrable filter of pain.

  I didn't know if he'd originally spoken the words to Schuyler or someone else; I only knew that when he spoke them to me, they sounded different.

  As he opened his eyes again and they locked onto my own, I wondered what it was he really saw when he looked at me: a living, breathing woman, or merely a wind-up doll built to his own specifications who existed purely at his wh
im.

  He knew well enough that I had a physical heart, the question in my mind remained whether or not he would ever understand that heart had real, human feelings, still.

  “You see, young woman,” he began, as he removed the glass dome which encased the clock and revealed to me the winding, musically aligned parts within. “Just as this must keep proper coordination of its parts to correctly keep the time, so, too, must your body have all parts working in concert in order to keep you alive.”

  I watched the clock, mesmerized, as the beauty of the mechanism powering it completely captivated me.

  “One spring out of alignment, one failing connection to the power source, and the gears would alternately skip and seize; keeping neither proper time nor serving any other worthwhile function. When you were brought to me, the Fever had so damaged the connecting components of your heart that it could no longer remember the cadence it was to properly keep on its own. It needed to be reminded — repeatedly — and sadly, the means I had at the ready to do so exacted a vast toll upon you overall.”

  He hardly needed to remind me of the toll those ‘treatments’ had taken, I felt the inward and saw the outward scars of the ordeal daily.

  Still, his voice was soothing and hypnotic in a way that surpassed anything I had ever known, and I hung upon his every word.

  “Then the decision was made, with no alternative, to switch you to the box. It was a dangerous time, a huge risk to you to stop the more powerful treatments, but they had begun to inflict more damage than they were doing good. So we had to abandon them.”

  I wondered, silently, that he spoke of ‘we’ when he was the only one who had treated me; was he referring to Schuyler, whose arguments I remembered in greater detail than almost anything else during that time?

  “Then, even the box began to create scars, damage upon the fragile vessel it was meant to help to operate.” His eyes took on a sorrow, a burdened quality — so deep, so painful, that I was certain that there must be more to it than simply fear for my continued existence. I was still virtually a stranger to him, still kept to myself even the name by which I was rightly called in this world. The pain that he was feeling was much more deeply rooted; and it had, I was convinced, a specific proper name.