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  He ceased speaking, sat down in the chair, and began to stare at the clock now himself, his chin resting on his hands, eyes half closed.

  “When was it that you had the idea for this?” I asked, indicating the box still tethered to me.

  He shifted uncomfortably, the first sign I had ever seen in him of uneasiness. “I've had many ideas for similar devices over the years,” he said, offering nothing more specific as to how many years or other attempts he'd made to design such a thing. Observing the questioning look in my eyes, he added, “It is the realization of many nights’ lost sleep, anguish, and untold grief.”

  I was surprised he was so forthcoming, and though I wished I could restrain myself, I could not. I asked the question that followed.

  “Grief over whom, sir?”

  Suddenly he rose, swept the clock away from me, and returned it to its place on the mantle. His hands trembled slightly as he tried to replace the glass, causing it to clink and clank as it bumped against working metal gears. Finally, he turned to face me.

  “All you must know is that a high price was paid for the invention which keeps you alive.”

  His voice had lost all tone of softness and intimacy now; he was back to being the statue that I had first known him to be.

  “Mind that, and do as you're told, so that the gift bestowed upon you does not prove to be given in vain.”

  He returned to his desk, sat down, picked up his journal and pen, and began to write. Without looking up at me, he said two words more that served both as a directive and an end to our conversation.

  “Good night.”

  * * *

  The following evening, I was summoned to the laboratory again, and nervous as to the reason.

  I found Quinn Godspeed still and silent at his desk, and he did not speak to me or move until Schuyler had locked the door behind me.

  I watched him, staring at something through a jeweler's loupe, his eyes fixed upon what he was doing with inhuman intensity; more like a cat observing its prey with unflinching focus,

  waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

  I studied him with rapt attention for some time, thinking that he had no idea until the moment he turned to me, loupe still in place, and nodded in my direction.

  “My father was a clockmaker,” he declared, without my having to ask. “He was… sort of a business partner of Schuyler's father. He built timepieces, restored antiques for the shop on a regular basis. I learned everything I know about clock repair and watch making from him.”

  He closed the case on the back of the watch he'd been working on and set his tools aside. Last of all, he removed the loupe and put it away. “I find concentrating on the task of repairing such a thing helps me to think.”

  I marveled that work so intricate, requiring such meticulous attention, could help anyone think about anything else. It just served as evidence again of the unusual mind at work here, someone so brilliant that clockworks were no challenge at all, and only in the mysteries of the inadequacies of the human body could a true challenge be found.

  “Your mother?” I asked softly. Hearing how dry my throat was, the doctor rose from his chair and brought me a glass of water.

  “I do not remember.”

  He did not elaborate as to whether she left him by choice or by chance, taken in death or had abandoned him when he was a boy. “Before you ask, no, I have no siblings. Well, none that are not… convenient fabrications.”

  I left the comment alone for now; I did not want to stop him talking. If I risked asking the wrong question in this moment he may never be willing to approach this topic again.

  I wondered that he was willing to approach it now. Again, I was too afraid of breaking the spell to question too mightily.

  “Schuyler's mother, I remember. She was a very kind woman. Gifted,” he continued. “A musician. All the musical instruments you find around this place originally belonged to her. She tried to teach me to play violin and piano, but I had no natural talent for music.

  “So off to my father's workshop I went, usually ferrying back and forth from it the items from Ruby Road that needed to be repaired. Very early on he had me assisting him, handing him this tool and that, never once behaving as if he believed I didn't understand. No matter how young I was, he always used the proper terms for things and explained to me exactly their purpose inside the clockworks.” He got a distant look in his eye, and shook his head as he paced past his workbench and moved toward the cabinet across the room.

  He opened up a panel, procured a bottle and glass, and poured himself a drink. “I didn't realize then that the greatest gift he would ever give me was faith in my own mind.”

  He downed the dark, pungent liquid in one long gulp and nodded approvingly at the taste. He pivoted on his heel and turned back toward me. “Still, you refuse to tell me about yourself.”

  I looked away.

  “Even so much as your name.”

  My eyes remained focused on the opposite wall.

  “I am a fairly resourceful man, you know.”

  I felt the urge to laugh at the magnitude of his understatement. To say he was fairly resourceful was to say that the sea, roaring and endless with advancing and retreating tides, was vast and tasted slightly of salt.

  “I've done some investigating,” he said, pacing again as he spoke. “There have been no reports of a young woman your age, anyone even close to your description, going missing in the last year, and I highly doubt you were on the street more than a day before Schuyler plucked you from it. Otherwise you would not have survived.”

  He looked me over with carefully critical eyes, almost as one considering purchase of a piece of used merchandise. “Why is it a girl with such… who has been at least somewhat carefully kept and cared for over the years, would not be reported missing?”

  I summoned all of my strength to speak, because I was driven to answer. “To be reported missing, sir, one must first be missed.”

  He inclined his head, accepting my explanation. He clearly understood how much speaking those words, words tied to such difficult emotions, took out of me. He pressed me no further.

  He returned to the workbench behind the surgical table, where I now sat with my legs hanging over the side.

  He opened the top drawer, procured a small wooden box, and held it up on display.

  “A gift.”

  My eyes widened when I saw what at first appeared to be a brilliant silver-tone locket; antique, and fashioned in the arcing shape of a heart.

  “This, like most things in life, is more than it first appears.” He removed it with one hand and set aside the box with the other before moving within reach. “This is the means by which we will free you from the torment of harsher treatments.”

  I watched with absolute amazement as he unlatched the clasp on the charm and revealed its complicated interior. Gear upon gear, lever upon lever, all churning and clicking away in musical, clockwork time. He leaned in so close now that I could feel the warmth of his cheek against mine.

  “Here.” He dangled the necklace in front of me, where it danced and flickered in the light. “This is your new heart. It's rare, and young, and made of pure white gold.” For an instant he looked upon me with an expression I could not possibly put emotion to. “Exactly, I am certain, like the one it will repair.”

  He lowered the chain around my neck, and as he did so, tears I could not deny wound their way down my cheeks and onto his gifted, powerful hands.

  CHAPTER 15

  HOURS LATER I SAT at my dressing table, marveling at how seamlessly the wires from my chest joined to the new charm suspended from the fine chain around my neck.

  “Admire it, do you?”

  I had left the door cracked open behind me, expecting Schuyler would be along soon to fetch me for dinner. I had not expected a visit from this man, who had somehow made all the way into the room and right up over my shoulder without my hearing or seeing him reflected in the glass.

  He s
tood there, listening scope slung around his neck, one foot crossed over the other, and at the sight my stomach turned and tumbled. Just looking at him was enough to banish every other thought I could possibly have. Looking at him was how I wished I could spend all my time for the rest of my days.

  “I do. It is a very pretty thing, Doctor Godspeed.”

  He muttered something under his breath that I did not quite hear, but could have sworn he made reference to the necklace not being the only pretty thing in the room.

  Whatever he said, the tone was enough to turn my usually chalky cheeks the color of the flowers on the curtains, and I looked down and straightened the skirt of the brand new white dress Schuyler had sewn for me.

  “You… look different,” he observed.

  “The dress, sir,” I offered, speaking softly as if it were a great secret. “Schuyler is a genius with fabric.”

  He leaned down and whispered into my ear, “Don't let him hear you say that, or we will never hear the end of it, the lot of us.” He remained where he was, just behind me, and I could feel his breath falling softly against the back of my neck. The sensation caused a shiver to travel through the whole of my body, and I wished nothing more in this moment than that I could turn around, look up at him, and tilt my face toward his…

  “It must feel a great burden has been lifted, now that you are no longer chained to the box.”

  “Oh, sir, I cannot begin to explain.” I did whirl around now, so quickly that he took a noticeable step back. I tried not to let my disappointment show. “The gift you have given me, not only life itself but the ability to truly live it for the first time, is something I could never thank you enough for.” I blinked away tears. “You've healed me, Doctor Godspeed. I am well.”

  “You are alive,” he replied cautiously.

  I worried at his tone. The truth of its meaning was discovered in the next instant when I asked a seemingly innocent question.

  “Now that I am free of the box I appear almost normal, or I could with a cloak. When may I go outside?”

  Quinn looked at me with a mixture of worry and annoyance. “Your accommodations no longer suit you, Miss?”

  “No, it's not that.” I didn't mean to seem ungrateful, though I doubted any animal would allow this — to be captive indoors so long without at least one attempt being made at escape. “I only wish to walk with the grass beneath my feet again. To take in the blossoms on the trees, and feel the wind upon my face.”

  He looked at me with a new expression, one I had not seen before. I didn't have long to marvel at it though, because his blunt response was not at all what I was expecting.

  “You can't go out during the day. Not anymore.”

  I was so shocked, indeed horrified by the declaration, that I could scarcely breathe, let alone speak.

  “You will remember that I told you sacrifices would have to be made for your life to continue. That a great price would have to be paid.”

  I nodded, already dreading words he had yet to say.

  His brow furrowed as he momentarily turned to another thought. “Do you know how it confounds me, your stubborn insistence upon keeping your name a secret? It makes me wonder, sometimes, if you are not hiding more from me than you first intimated. What darkness you may be capable of.” He seemed to say the words only to goad me, as if clearly certain all the same that I was a being incapable of intentionally hurting another.

  “No,” I objected. “I've done nothing wrong, sir, I promise you.”

  “Then why the continued evasion?”

  I was feeling particularly bold in this moment, though I couldn't have said why — perhaps the prospect of spending the rest of my days, however long or short a time they may add up to, within the confines of these walls pushed me beyond the limits of acceptable politeness.

  “You are not the only one with questions, Doctor Godspeed. Perhaps it is time we both spoke from the heart?”

  His expression turned sour; still it did not detract one bit from the elegant lines of his jaw or the fire in his eyes. On the contrary, the frown only seemed to enhance the intensity in him that I found so entrancing.

  “To speak from the heart you must have one.”

  His words hung heavy in the air between us, and I could feel his pain like a physical blow. It didn't just bleed from him slowly, in that moment it rushed from him like a tidal wave and it swept me under, drowning me in the darker contents of his soul.

  “No man without a heart could ever possess the genius it takes to resurrect another's,” I whispered. He turned to me with a look of incredulousness upon his face, as if he was uncertain he'd really heard the words I said.

  “You are a curious thing. You're much too young to be making such observations about what a man might be capable of.” He shook his head. “Men are capable of acts of both great heroism and utter stupidity. The challenge is determining the difference in advance, when sadly it is often only hindsight which offers the proper perspective.”

  “I thought you were going to say acts of great good and ultimate evil.”

  He slowly raised his intense eyes to mine. “That, too.”

  “That is an ugly truth, sir.”

  “It is an ugly world.”

  We remained silent for a while, both lost to our own memories of the ugliness we'd known.

  “Why?” I asked suddenly, hoping he would continue to give me enough credit for the brain that I had and not to patronize me by watering down the truth.

  He made no attempt to evade the question by feigning ignorance of my meaning. “Why can you no longer go out in the sunlight?”

  “Yes.”

  “It's not that it would harm you, not outright. In fact, it is days with storming rains we need fear more.” It was the first time I'd heard him admit any sort of fear where I was concerned, and it was a revelation that made my heart speed up all on its own.

  A small noise, something I could only explain as a cross between a ping and a click, sounded from the ornament wired to my chest.

  “What's this? Let's have a listen.”

  The closer he got to me the faster my heart proceeded to pound, and for several moments it fought the cadence of the mechanism meant to regulate it.

  “Something is upsetting you,” he said, withdrawing the listening scope from his ears. “You must avoid all undue stress, and not battle against the workings of the machine. Is there something in particular that is troubling you?”

  How could I tell him that it was merely his nearness that was creating such a reaction within me?

  I could not, so I lied to him. For the first time, I looked him directly in the eyes and I lied.

  “It may be of no consequence to a creature as nocturnal as you are, sir, but I am accustomed to living during daylight hours. At least I was, when I was still alive.”

  “As I told you before, you are alive now. Many are confined by the limits of an existence they did not choose and cannot change, young woman. Perhaps it would do you well to have a lesson in gratitude.”

  “I didn't mean to seem—” I stammered. “Doctor, please.”

  “I believe you are well enough to come downstairs for dinner tonight,” he announced. “A few of my other patients will be coming by, and it is their custom to have dinner together on such occasions. Schuyler will spend most of the day in the kitchen and the result will be a meal unlike anything you've probably ever seen in your life. Yes…” He nodded to himself. “It is time you met the Freaks.”

  I recoiled, hearing him use such an unkind word to describe another living being. “Is that the word you would use to describe me, doctor, when I am not within distance to hear?”

  “It is not my word,” he corrected quickly. “It is theirs. It is the word by which they choose to identify themselves.” He moved toward the door, and though I always hated to see him leave my presence, today there was even greater motivation to keep him here a little longer: he had never fully answered my question.

  “Why can I no lon
ger go out during the day?”

  “Because.” He moved back toward me, the tip of his index finger just brushing over the metal casing of the charm. “In the end there was only one power source that I could truly depend upon to work in unison with the artificial, and that was the ultimate, most basic source of all energy on Earth.”

  Instantly I understood. “The sun?”

  “Very good.” He almost, but not quite, gazed upon me approvingly. “It must build a charge during daylight hours, and then when I bring it to you it will hold enough power to carry you through most of the night. The sleeping world will be yours. When day comes, you must rest.”

  I sighed. I wished in this moment I could truly understand every intricate internal component of the device that prolonged my life, even if it limited it at the same time. More than that, though, I wished to understand the deepest hidden recesses of the mind that contained the genius necessary to fashion it from nothing.

  “So, you understand?”

  “I understand enough,” I whispered. “For now.”

  “Good.” He disconnected the device from my chest and the instant I was free of it I felt a mixture of relief and unimaginable exhaustion. “I wish to inspect this in case the source of that odd sound may be found. Rest now. I shall have it returned to you before supper.”

  “Doctor?”

  He paused with the key to the door in his hand, poised and ready for use. He waited.

  “Will I ever walk with the sun on my face again?”

  He inhaled sharply. Something in my tone seemed, for just a moment, to penetrate the armor that encased him.

  “It is my hope, and my intention, that you shall.” Then he offered one final word that indicated he did not know for certain if or when that could be. “Someday.”

  CHAPTER 16

  I WALKED WITH SCHUYLER through the now familiar hallway, and he paused before opening the door to the red room. “They're going to love you.”

  “Oh?” I was nervous. I had no idea what, or whom it was that he was so certain would find my company a pleasurable experience.