About Cogheart
Some secrets change the world in a heartbeat.
Lily’s life is in mortal peril. Her father is missing and now silver-eyed men stalk her through the shadows. What could they want from her?
With her friends – Robert, the clockmaker’s son, and Malkin, her mechanical fox – Lily is plunged into a murky and menacing world. Too soon Lily realizes that those she holds dear may be the very ones to break her heart…
Murder, mayhem and mystery meet in this gripping Victorian adventure.
Praise for Cogheart
“Vivid and gripping…a beautifully-drawn world and delicate detailing, as finely wrought as a watch’s workings.”
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Girl of Ink and Stars
“A gem of a book.”
Katherine Woodfine, author of The Mystery of The Clockwork Sparrow
“A delightfully badly behaved heroine, enthralling mechanicals and a stormer of a plot.”
Abi Elphinstone, author of The Dreamsnatcher
“A classic adventure in every way I love – machines, Victoriana and high, pulse-pounding thrills. It’s got real heart too.”
Rob Lloyd Jones, author of Wild Boy
“One of my favourite debuts of the year. Murder, mystery and mayhem in a thrilling Victorian adventure.”
Fiona Noble, The Bookseller
“A magical and thrilling story. Prepare yourself for the adventure of a lifetime, a truly stunning debut.”
Jo Clarke, Book Lover Jo
“WONDERFUL…a blend of Philip Pullman, Joan Aiken and Katherine Rundell. Don’t miss!”
Amanda Craig
“Wonderfully gripping.”
Charlotte Eyre, The Bookseller
For Michael, with love.
Contents
About Cogheart
Praise for Cogheart
Map
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
A dictionary of curious words
Acknowledgements
About the author
Moonlocket by Peter Bunzl
Cogheart website
Malkin pressed his forepaws against the flight-deck window and peered out. The silver airship was still following; gaining on them. The purr of its propellers and the whoosh of its knife-sharp hull cutting through the air sent a shiver of terror through his clockwork innards.
The fox tore his eyes away and stared at his master. John’s ship, Dragonfly, was fast but she had nothing in the way of firepower. The silver airship, by contrast, bristled with weapons. Sharp metal spikes stuck out from her hull, making her look like some sort of militarized porcupine.
Just then, Dragonfly’s rudder shifted, and she pitched as John twisted the wheel into a one-eighty turn to swoop back past her pursuers.
The silver airship shrunk away, but within seconds she’d swung around to follow. She began closing in once more; her propellers chopping through the clouds, throwing dark shadows across their stern. When the two airships broke into a patch of blue, she fired.
A harpoon slashed across the sky and thudded into Dragonfly’s hull, the point piercing her port side.
Thud! Another harpoon speared into the stern.
Malkin let out a bark of alarm as a stench of burning gas filled the flight deck, and the needles in the rows of instrument panels flickered into the red danger zones. Over the whine of their stalling engines, the crackle of straining steel cables could be heard. The silver airship had begun to pull them in.
John locked Dragonfly’s wheel, and engaged her autopilot. He threw open the cockpit door and, with Malkin at his heels, dashed towards the engine room.
Pistons pumped, and crankshafts turned at full power, while the cabin juddered and shook. In the centre of the floor, a metal egg-shaped pod sat among a tangle of pipes.
John threw open its door. “No room for both of us,” he said. “You go, Malkin.”
The fox gave a whimper of disapproval. “No. It should be you, John. Humans over mechanicals. It’s the law.”
John shook his head. “I can’t leave my ship; I need to try and guide her down safely – and you’ve no opposable thumbs!” He gave a half-hearted laugh and withdrew a battered envelope from his pocket. Crouching down, he stuffed it into a leather pouch around Malkin’s neck. “This is for my Lily. See that she gets it.”
“What’s in there?”
John smiled. “Secrets. Tell her to keep them safe. She mustn’t tell anyone about them, not ever. Can you remember that?”
“I think so.” Malkin prodded the pouch, sniffing at it with his nose.
“Good,” John said. “Make for Brackenbridge, that’s where she’ll be. If I get out of this alive, I’ll come find her.”
“Is there anything else?”
“And tell her I love her.” John ruffled the mechanimal’s ears one last time. “It’s at least a day’s journey from here, have you enough clicks?”
Malkin nodded.
“Take your winder anyway.” John produced a tarnished key on a chain and hung it round the fox’s neck, next to the pouch. “Though heaven knows who’ll wind you if I’m not there.”
“Thank you, John.” Malkin stepped into the escape pod and curled up on the seat. “By all that ticks, I hope to see you again.”
“And I you, old friend.” John shut the door. With a clatter and hum the pod bay doors opened and in a jolt, the pod was free.
As John watched it through the open hatch, shrinking away in the sky, an image of his daughter, Lily, flashed into his mind. If only he could see her one last time. Tell her the truth about the past. He should’ve done it long ago, but he’d not been brave enough. Now Malkin would have to take care of things. Everything was in the letter.
Another harpoon smashed through Dragonfly’s hull, and whirring saw blades cut through the steel ribs, ripping cracks in the ship’s tin chest. In a jagged screech, the cracks were wrenched into a doorway, and two silhouetted figures appeared. Their silver eyes glinted in the light. The thinner of the figures raised a stick with a skull handle, then John felt a blinding shaft of pain, and everything went black…
Lily wrinkled her freckled nose as she trudged along at the back of the line of girls. With each step, her heart beat hard in her chest, and her green eyes flicked across the dog-eared pages of her beloved penny dreadful hidden inside her schoolbook.
She was enjoying a particularly gory scene in Varney the Vampyre Versus The Air-Pirates, where Varney had captured the heroine in the disused attic of an Italian boarding school and was preparing to feast on her blood.
Lily had her pencil poised to mark up the gruesomest passages of the magazine, so she could reread them later at her leisure. Another dubious volume, balanced on the crown of her head, wobbled with each step, but she didn’t let it distract her from Varney.
“Heads up! Eyes straight!” With one copy of The Oxford Guide to Perfect Poise balanced on her head, Mrs McKracken, Lily’s middle-aged deportment teacher, led the gaggle of girls in a circle around the Great Hall, her flat feet slapping across the polished wooden floor. The Kraken, Lily called her – though never to her face, that would be far too risky.
The Kraken was somewhat obsessed with posture. As for Lily, she barely gave it a second thought. In her opinion it was better to read books than balance them. That’s what they were designed for, after all. And if you wanted to wear something on your head there was a perfectly good item designed for that too: it was called a hat.
Lily sneaked a brief glance at the other girls in her class. At the front of the line, Miss Lucretia Blackwell had her prim nose stuck in the air and three copies of Sensible Etiquette for the Best Occasions balanced on her perfectly coiffed hair.
Second came Miss Alice Harvey, who had seven copies of Butterwick’s Guide to Better Manners balanced on her doughnut plait. With that monstrous hair-buncle, it was no surprise she never dropped a single copy.
Miss Gemma Ruddle was next. She had four precarious copies of The Ladies’ Manual of Politeness balanced and would stop after each step and pretend to scratch her ear so she could adjust her leaning tower of literature.
Lily had long ago noticed the other girls never read in posture class. It seemed thinking and walking simultaneously was too difficult for them. She doubted a single important thought ever floated through their minds. If Spring-Heeled Jack, or Varney the Vampyre, or the air-pirates, or any of the other blackguards who roamed England, ever caught any of those girls in a dark alley they’d be dead for sure. Dead before they’d practised their conversational French, dead before they’d politely discussed the weather, or asked “Tea or coffee?”; in short, dead before their perfectly poised bodies struck the cobbles. And what use was deportment to one dead? No use. No use whatsoever.
“Stop,” the Kraken yelled and one by one the girls stopped in a neat line behind her. All except Lily who, having failed to notice her untied shoelaces, tripped, stepped on Gemma’s foot, and fell.
“Ouch!” Gemma staggered forward, clutching at Alice to try and keep her balance, but in vain; her four copies of The Ladies’ Manual of Politeness slipped from her head.
“Careful!” Alice cried, dropping seven copies of Butterwick’s Guide to Better Manners.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud… Thud.
Lucretia wobbled from side to side, grasping at the top of her head, but she was too late. Three copies of Sensible Etiquette for the Best Occasions slipped from her brow and scattered at her feet in a crash of fluttering pages.
“Why don’t you pay attention, you galumphing lump?” the Kraken shouted. “What’ve you got to say for yourself?”
Lily gazed up from the sea of fallen books. Was the woman talking to her? “Sorry?” she tried.
The Kraken huffed. “I said: WHAT-HAVE-YOU-GOT-TO-SAY-FOR-YOURSELF? Oh, never mind.” She took The Oxford Guide to Perfect Poise from her head and threw it at Lily, who ducked as the heavy tome glanced past her ear.
“You’ve been reading. You’re not allowed to read in my class—”
“I thought—”
“And no thinking either.” The Kraken folded her arms across her chest. She’d turned a most putrid shade of puce; it perfectly matched her purple dress. Perhaps it was her tight corsets that made her face flush so?
The bell rang and the other girls scrabbled across the floor, grabbing their books and slamming them shut. They piled the volumes on the Kraken’s desk and lined up against the wall, waiting for the signal to leave.
“You may go,” the Kraken said, waving them off with a hand, and the crocodile of young ladies filed out, whispering maliciously to one another. Lily dusted down her tights and stood to join them.
“Not you, Miss Grantham. I want words with you.” The Kraken waddled towards her. “Why is it you think you can ignore my lessons in favour of these tall tales?” She plucked the schoolbook from Lily’s hands and examined the gory magazine hidden inside its pages, paying particular attention to the image of a bloody corpse with bat wings.
“Where on earth did you get this balderdash?”
“Papa sent it in his last care package, Miss. He knows I like the penny dreadfuls.”
“Does he indeed?” The Kraken looked unimpressed.
Lily continued. “He believes one should read a lot wider than deportment manuals if one plans to get an exceptional education. Don’t you agree?”
The Kraken weighed the magazine in her hand. “No,” she said. “I don’t. Besides, this sort of bunkum is not approved of by the academy. It has no educational value.”
“It teaches piracy and air combat.”
“And what young lady needs to know that?” The Kraken took a deep breath. “No. I’m afraid, Miss Grantham, I have to confiscate it. And if you’ve any similar stories, you’d better hand them over right away.”
Lily shrugged. “I don’t have a single other magazine of that kind.”
“Nonsense. You’ve one there.”
“I beg your pardon? Where?”
“The one you’re hiding.”
The Kraken craned her neck, trying to see what Lily had behind her back. Lily passed the magazine from her left hand to her right. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Give it to me.” The Kraken held out her shovel of a palm.
“Fine.” Lily glowered, handing over Spring-Heeled Jack and the Blackguards.
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” The Kraken wedged both magazines under her sweaty armpit.
“No, Ma’am.”
“Good.” The Kraken handed Lily back her schoolbook. “Remember,” she said, wagging a single finger, “if you’ve any more of these dreadful things you can be sure I’ll find them. Now, run along, you don’t want to be late for your next lesson. And straighten your pinny, it’s wrinkled as an elephant’s ear.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Good afternoon, Ma’am.” Lily brushed at her creased pinny with ink-stained fingers and gave the Kraken a curtsy, but when the woman returned to her desk, Lily stuck her tongue out at her broad retreating backside. Then, with as much poise as she could muster, she flounced to the door and hurried off down the passage.
Miss Octavia Scrimshaw’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies was a cluster of wind-blown red-brick buildings that stood in a wild corner of England. The school was proud to proclaim its elegant reputation in the society papers under a scrolled coat of arms, but the truth was its reputation, like the buildings themselves, had steadily crumbled over the years and now was badly in need of repair.
Lily’s father had chosen to send her to the school after she’d frustrated a number of governesses. His main criterion: it was out of the way and no one there would ask questions about her. He’d even given her a false surname: Grantham – a combination of G for Grace (from her mother), and Hartman – their real surname. He never explained why, or what he was trying to hide her from, but since the time of Mama’s death he’d become preoccupied with keeping Lily’s whereabouts a secret, even moving them from London to deep in the countryside. Lily suspected he was just a natural born worrier, though he still insisted she have the life of a normal well-bred Victorian young lady.
The trouble was, Lily reflected, as she sneaked up the last set of stairs to the girls’ dormitory, she didn’t want the life of a well-bred Victorian young lady, she wanted the life of an air-pirate.
Which was why, after her run-in with the Kraken, she decided to skip French conversation class and hide her remaining stash of penny dreadfuls before they were confiscated or worse, destroyed – like every other vaguely interesting or illicit thing in this institution.
The dormitory door was locked, but she knew how to deal with that. She took a hairpin from her bun of red hair, straightened it in her teeth, and popped it in the keyhole. Then she wiggled the pin about, while turning the doorknob. It was a trick she’d practised many times, first learned from The Notorious Jack Door: Escapologist and Thief Extraordinaire – the book, not the man himself. Although she wouldn’t have minded having a few words with him about advanced lock-picking if they ever bumped into one another. Anyway, according to Jack, all you had to do was listen out for the—
Click!
There it was. Quietly, Lily pulled open the door and crept into the dormitory, her boots squeaking across the floorboards. Ticking radiators warmed the room, and Lily heard the voices of the other girls chanting French verbs in the downstairs classroom. A pale November sun hung above the opposite buildings, sneaking occasional beams of light in through the frost-covered windows to caress her face.
Lily stopped beside her bed and pulled her penny dreadfuls from the drawer of her side table; she was about to push them under her mattress when she heard a faint muffled sobbing.
She glanced about. It seemed the dorm wasn’t empty after all. Through a thin dividing curtain at the end of the row of beds, Lily glimpsed the silhouette of a hunched figure sitting on the corner of a mattress. She walked over and peered round the edge of the drape to find Molly Tarnish, the mechanical maid, sitting softly crying to herself, her metal shoulders shaking beneath her starched white pinny. Beyond her, the door to the servants’ staircase stood ajar.
Molly raised her head and snuffled away an oily tear. “Sorry, Miss. I didn’t hear you come in. I should probably go.”
“Oh, no need,” Lily said. “I’m not supposed to be here either.” She pulled a grubby handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to Molly, who blew her nose with a sound as loud as a steamhorn.
“Thank you,” Molly mumbled, returning the hanky to Lily.
“Please, pay it no mind.” Lily stuffed the damp rag, now covered in engine oil, back into her blouse sleeve. “But whatever’s the matter?”
Molly held up a bright pink sheet from a pile behind her. “I put these in the washer with the school blazers and they all changed colour. Miss Scrimshaw’s going to kill me when she finds out. She’ll have me sent down the cog-and-bone merchants. Or worse, she’ll strip me parts and melt me down like poor old Elsie.” Molly burst into more inconsolable tears.
Lily patted her back. “Don’t cry, Moll. We’ll think of something. Maybe I could write to the school board on your behalf?”
Molly gave another choking sob. “Oh, please, Miss, don’t get them involved, I beg you.”
“Well, all right then.” Lily examined the row of iron bedsteads, thinking. “I know,” she said, “why don’t we use your dyed sheets on the bottom of the beds, then we can use the old white ones as top sheets to hide them?”
Molly sniffed. “D’you really think so?”
“I don’t see why not,” Lily replied. “Come on.” She unfolded a pink sheet and pulled the covers off the nearest bed. Molly watched her for a moment, then stood to help.
Working together, it didn’t take them long to change the majority of the beds, and once the blankets were on you could hardly tell the bottom sheets had been dyed the wrong colour. They’d nearly finished, and were making up the last mattress at the top of the dormitory, when a noise made them both whirl round.
Alice Harvey was standing in the doorway with Lucretia Blackwell, their faces scrunched into sneers.
“Look, Miss Harvey,” Lucretia said. “Lily’s helping the help.”
“What are you doing here?” Lily asked.
“Madame Laroux told us to bring you to class,” Alice replied. “We’re doing chapter twenty-two in The Art of Making Polite Conversation in French.”
“I’m not coming,” Lily told her. “I don’t feel like it. Anyway, Madame wouldn’t know polite conversation if it bit her on the behind.” She threw a sideways glance at Molly, who bowed her head and stifled a wheezing laugh.
“How dare you!” Lucretia grabbed the last of the sheets from Molly, and threw them on the floor. “Look what you’ve done, you stupid mech, you’ve dyed them pink!”
“I’m sorry, Miss,” Molly mumbled back.
Lily balled her fists. “Why don’t you leave her alone?” she said, stepping forward to shield Molly from the two girls.
“What business is it of yours?” Alice asked.
“She’s a friend of mine.”
“She? SHE?” Lucretia folded her arms across her chest and gave a disdainful laugh. “It’s not alive, Lily. Mechs aren’t living.”
“Besides,” Alice scuttled closer to Lucretia, “everyone knows mechs and humans can’t be friends. Mechs have no feelings.”
Lily sighed. It was exhausting dealing with such idiots. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she told them. “Of course they have feelings. They’re no different to you or me.”
Lucretia tutted at her. “Oh, Lily, Lily, how wrong you are. Let me show you.” She whipped out a hand and struck Molly round the head.
Molly’s eyes flared, but she didn’t respond.
“You see?” Lucretia said. “It didn’t even flinch.”
Creakily, Molly rubbed her head. She bent down and gathered her dropped sheets and stepped to the servants’ door. “Please, Misses, don’t fight on my account. I am sorry, but I must go, I’ve work to do.”
“Go then, mech,” Lucretia spat. “Run along, before you’re thrown on the scrap heap.” She smiled triumphantly at Alice.
Lily had never wanted to hit anyone so much – she could barely stop herself. But she did, because she’d made a promise to Papa to behave, and behaving meant not causing trouble. Even so, as she ground her teeth and watched Molly hurry from the room, the anger ticked away inside her chest, threatening to explode.
Lucretia gave a haughty snigger, and Alice joined in.
Finally, Lily could take it no more – there was not causing trouble, and then there was standing up for what was right. Because mechanicals deserved to be treated like anyone else.
“Listen, you pair of simpering, fat-headed dolts,” she said, “if you ever speak to Molly that way again I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” Alice sneered. “Don’t you threaten me.”
Lily bit her lip and thought better of her reply. Alice broke into a horsey smile. “See, you snotty little runt? You won’t do anything – and that’s the truth. Just because you’re a mech-lover you think you can boss us around. Well, you can’t. Now, apologize immediately and we’ll forget the whole thing.”
Lily shook her head. “You’ll never apologize to Molly, so I’m not apologizing to you.”
“As you wish.” Alice lunged at Lily, making a grab for her hair. Lily ducked away and the girl’s hand scratched at her collar, pulling at her bun. She tried to push back, but Lucretia had joined in with her friend – she’d got a hold of Lily’s other arm, and wouldn’t let go.
Alice’s long nails raked at Lily’s scalp, scratching her ears. There was nothing for it, she would have to retaliate. She swung her balled fist at Alice’s face.
Crack. Her knuckles made contact.
“I said I was sorry,” Lily protested as the Kraken dragged her down the corridor, pulling her along by the scruff of her blouse. “Besides, she hit me first.”
“Nonsense,” the Kraken blustered. “Anyone can see she has the complexion of a bruised beetroot.”
“Her face always looks a bit purply.”
“What lies you tell, child.”
They passed the main entrance, and Lily glanced at the Academy’s motto carved in the granite lintel. Vincit Omnia Veritas – Truth Conquers All.
Not in this case, Lily reflected, as the Kraken manhandled her down a flight of stone steps, and out into the courtyard.
In the quad, girls in thick winter blousons and woollen hats and scarves strolled arm in arm, or perched birdlike on benches, their backs as straight as ironing boards. They whispered behind gloved hands as they watched the Kraken shove Lily down a narrow alley on the far side of the square.
Everyone knew where that led – past the row of tumbledown sheds and an outside latrine with flaky wood panelling, past a high wall fringed with crenellations of broken bottles, all the way to the coal bunker crouched in the far corner of the grounds, its doorway dark as a demon’s mouth.
Rumour had it the bodies of the worst offending former residents were buried in that bunker, and when the coal ran dry their white bones would be revealed, poking from the dust.
“Please, Mrs McKracken,” Lily cried, “don’t put me in there, I’m afraid of the dark.”
“Rubbish. The dark never hurt anyone.” The Kraken unlocked the bunker and pushed Lily inside. “If you insist on behaving like a common chimney sweep, then you will have to live like one. Never speak back to those older and wiser than you. You’ll stay in here until you learn the value of manners.”
The Kraken’s angry face disappeared with the slit of light as she slammed the door, and Lily heard the snap of the padlock and then her heavy footsteps lurching away across the yard.
Alone in the cold, dark bunker, fear pricked at Lily’s heart. She felt around her, her hands brushing icy lumps of coal. Against the far wall, she found a wonky stool; she sat upon it, and it rocked back and forth precariously – one leg rotten. When she tried to put her feet on the crossbar, she discovered that was broken too, so she pulled her knees up onto the seat and hugged them to her. Their warmth, tight in her chest, felt mildly comforting.
Something crawled across her ankle and she brushed it away with the tip of her boot. Faint scuttlings echoed around the space and she tried not to think of all the horrible things it might be. Earwigs, spiders, mice, rats… But, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw something far worse: a dismembered arm, sticking out from beneath the pile of coal.
Malkin ran for a long time; taking care to keep out of sight, he zigzagged between the trees in short bursts. He had to put as much distance between himself and the crash site as possible. He needed to get to Lily and give her John’s last message, before his ticks ran out.
The sun had long gone and the air was thick with grey mist, its cold dew clinging to his fur in droplets. Bushes shook their damp leaves as he brushed past and, far above, the hulking engines of the silver airship chugged in unison, while its searchlight swept the forest looking for him.
He reached the trunk of an old oak and stopped under cover of its ivy-swollen canopy; his black eyes glinted in the haze, taking in the murky view. Ahead, the path was strewn with broken branches, and those spiky bushes whose burrs always caught in his tail fur. He twitched his nose in disgust. Perhaps he should turn back, go another way… But his senses told him the men were following, so he pressed on, treading carefully.
The ground was boggy and as he ran beads of mud squished between his claws and spattered the pouch round his neck. He was leaving paw prints that could easily be tracked – practically marking his route for them – he cursed the damp ground, the foul weather, the men, the airship, everything. He was a precision machine. Not built for this kind of adventure. The indignity of it: to be chased through the woods like a common scavenger!
More prickly bushes – they were everywhere.
He found a gap in the corner of a thicket and squeezed through.
A tunnel ran under dense vegetation for a few feet, then opened out into a narrow track, scattered with droppings. He stopped to sniff them – an old fox trail, but it had obviously not been used in a while.
He ran on, the undergrowth thickening around him once more. A solid arm of bramble blocked his path. He wiggled past it, and its fiendish barbs caught his leg – this was intolerable!
He scrambled onwards, glancing about. Now he was further into the woods the airship’s searchlight was no longer visible and the hum of its engines had subsided. Far off, a distant owl let out a warning cry.
The harsh sounds of the men’s voices and the barking of their wretched dog suddenly came close, echoing around him; then their lanterns appeared among the trees nearby, hovering like fat fireflies, and winking as they passed behind the trunks.
Malkin glanced briefly over his shoulder and counted the lamps. There were three in total. But there would be more men than that – one would be handling the dog, others weapons. They had descended from the airship like a swarm.
He skirted round a deep gully filled with rainwater; then a large millpond. The hulking silhouette of a derelict watermill sat on its far side.
He wished he could hurl himself in and paddle across, but he knew mechanimals and swallowing water should never mix. John had warned him: only a pint or two was enough to rust his insides.
John. He was gone now. Probably burned to death or worse inside Dragonfly’s tin belly. The thought of it made the cogs of Malkin’s innards turn queasily.
On the far side of the pond he scrambled over a mossy outcrop of boulders; tripped on a root, and tumbled forward, slamming into a pile of damp leaves.
He must concentrate. Time enough to think about John later.
He stood and shook off the leaf-dust, checked the pouch around his neck – it was still there, thank tock.
The dog barked closer. Mechanical barks, much deeper than his own.
Then the gruff voices of the men came through the winter air, from behind the pile of rocks.
“I think he went this way. Bracken’s trampled.”
“Here too. There’s tracks by the water’s edge.”
“Keep looking. He’s close by.”
Malkin caught a glimpse of something – a fat black silhouette, with silver eyes, pointing towards him through the trees – and glanced around for somewhere to hide. He was in a hollow with only a few bare logs around. He had to keep moving.
He crawled forward, slinking across the clearing, keeping his belly low to the ground and checking for twigs which might snap under his weight.
He smelled them approaching, heard their feet climbing the boulders. Their clanking mech-dog barked ferociously and pulled forward, but the men kept him leashed. Lucky there was so much fog, or they would’ve let the dog run for sure.
“This way.”
“I thought I heard him.”
“He was here a moment ago.”
Malkin scrambled over a bank, sliding behind a line of trees. As he darted across a gap between two bushes, he risked a glance back.
The mech-dog must have caught a brief flash of his white neck; it strained at the leash and bounded towards him, pulling its handler along behind.
Malkin picked up pace. He was at least thirty feet ahead of them now – or so he thought, through the fog. He needed to keep his distance.
He jumped a trickling stream and wove through a line of firs – let those stupid meatheads try and follow him here. Ahead, the gaps between the trees became wider, patches of grey mist separated the trunks and their number thinned; he glimpsed the last few firs standing alone in a sea of bracken, pushed up against a wooden fence that flowed into an adjoining field.
He crept out of the woods and waded through the tall ferns, arriving at a break in the fence. Tucking his tail in, he shimmied under a crossbar, and stepped out into an empty field.
It was colder out here, and the frosted topsoil meant his paws would leave no prints. He had to be careful on open ground, but the dense fog made for adequate hiding.
He stepped forward warily. In the distance, between the grey patches of air, he spotted the outline of a drystone wall and the hint of a cart track.
The voices were getting close again, but the field wasn’t as big as he’d first thought and there was every chance he could reach the other side before they arrived. He took a diagonal path across its centre, running briskly.
Halfway across, the airship’s searchlight blasted on above him, cutting the sky in two with a bright white column. Its engines pushed swathes of fog away, and suddenly he was exposed, his bright shape singing out against the landscape.
A crackle of gunfire.
Malkin glanced back.
“Stop there!” The silhouette with silver eyes emerged from the wood, and raised a steam-rifle.
Malkin froze, facing his enemy. His heart thrumming against his ribcage. Slowing time.
He stared, unblinking, at the mirrors in the dark face, trying to make out any flicker of expression in them.
The man let out a blast of breath. Malkin shuffled backwards, slowly widening the distance between them. Was he really going to shoot?
The man squinted into his gunsight, taking aim, and brought his finger to the trigger. Malkin turned and ran, hoping the density of the fog would be enough to save him…
Crack!
A searing explosion pierced his shoulder.
The ground dipped under him. He rolled forward, somersaulting across the icy surface, spinning to a stop at the base of the field. The airship’s searchlight flashed wildly around him, picking out circles of frost in the grass. A ghostly after-image of those mirrored eyes burned in his field of vision. He shook it away.
The men’s long shadows chased across the open field towards him, lamplights floating before them.
“He’s down!”
“I think you got him.”
“I can’t see where he’s at. Where’d he go?”
Malkin staggered to his feet, shell-shocked, and limped towards the boundary wall. The dog, freed from its leash, barked and leaped after him; the men ran with it, firing wildly. The mirror-eyed shooter lagged behind, trying to reload his rifle, while others, without weapons, waved lanterns at the airship.
Malkin reached the wall, and slumped over it, tumbling onto the track beyond, loose stones scattering in his wake. He struggled to his feet and loped on.
Pain seared sharply through his shoulder. He rubbed his snout against it, feeling for an exit wound, but found none. The bullet must be lodged somewhere deep inside, like a stone in a paw. He heard the men’s distant shouts – they hadn’t given up. At least he still had his pouch. He couldn’t let them have that.
The track branched in two and Malkin chose the left fork at random. He slowed, hobbling onwards, looking for an outhouse or barn where he could hide, but there was nothing. He was running out of tocks. Pretty soon he’d wind down – and if that happened in the open they’d be sure to catch him.
Suddenly, around the next corner, a cottage appeared; beyond it, dotted in the distance, were more. Brackenbridge village – he was nearly home. If he could just get to the other side safely…
He checked the pouch one last time for John’s letter, and was relieved to find it still there. He’d made a promise to get it to Lily, for it contained great secrets. The last words of a father to his daughter was the sort of message one should deliver no matter the cost. And now his master was gone, Malkin was determined not to fail.
Robert Townsend woke before the alarm sounded and lay listening in the dark. Something had disturbed his sleep – a noise outside. A distant but distinct crack. He glanced at the hands of the clock on the nightstand.
Twenty to six.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
There it was again. What on earth could it be?
Robert jumped out of bed and stepped across the cold boards to the window. Pulling back the curtain, he wiped the condensation from the glass with the sleeve of his nightshirt and peered out.
The village was empty. He scanned the nearby countryside, searching for the source of the sound.
In the distance, behind a line of trees, a beam of light cut through the mist and came swooping across the fields – the arc lamp of an airship. A big one by the looks of it, and unusual for this time of the morning.
Robert knew every flight schedule by heart. Whenever he wasn’t working he loved to visit the local airstation which served Brackenbridge and the surrounding area. He’d spot the zeps coming in along the airways, watch the fly boys in their goggles and leather helmets carrying their toolboxes, and the passengers dressed in smart travel clothes queuing on the gangways. One day, he vowed, he’d go up there with them, if he could only overcome his fear of heights.
This airship felt different. From its size and path, Robert had a feeling it was not a scheduled flight. When the mist separated, revealing the rest of the craft, he knew for sure he was right. He couldn’t see its name or mark, but the ship had the look of a military model. Its silver reflective balloon seemed to suck in the moonlight, a harpoon gun stuck out from a hatch in its hull, and the front of its gondola was covered in metal spikes.
Suddenly the zep shut off its searchlight and changed course, climbing higher into the clouds. A popping sequence of musket flashes flared across a nearby field and Robert watched three flickering lamps emerge from the woods and float down the hillside. They gathered in the valley, and turned along the track towards the village.
Something was going on and he had to know what it was. He grabbed his trousers from where they hung on the end of the bedstead; jumped into them and snapped the braces on over his nightshirt.
As he struggled into his winter coat, he took one last look out the window. Lucky he did, or he would’ve missed the fox.
It tottered along the lane, throwing nervous glances over its shoulder. When it reached the green it stopped and swayed, glancing about, and its eyes alighted on the line of shops under Robert’s window. Robert had the strangest feeling it was reading the sign for his da’s shop, but that couldn’t be, could it?
The fox nodded to itself and limped onwards. It passed the church and the walled graveyard beside the village green, then stumbled into Pincher’s Alley – a scrubby track that ran behind a row of terraced airstation workers’ cottages.
Robert waited for its shambling shape to emerge onto the bare field at the alley’s far end, but it did not appear. It must’ve hidden down the lane somewhere, in one of the cottages’ backyards. He decided to go look for it.
He threw on his socks and shoes and took the candle from his bedside, then he opened the door and crept along the hallway, treading softly so as not to wake his da in the next room.
At the base of the stairs he drew back the rag curtain and crept into the shop.
The familiar smell of beeswax furniture polish and the quiet ticking of the clocks made him linger as he crossed the floor. Each clock’s shape and sound was so ingrained in him they felt as comforting as old friends. On nights when he couldn’t sleep he often came down to watch the clocks and listen to their ticking; but not tonight. He put up a hand to silence the bell, opened the door, and stepped into the street.
A grey haze hung in the air, along with the pillowy silence of early morning. Far off, the barking of a dog echoed across the fields. He could’ve been the only human alive in the world.
First, he made his way over to the place where the fox had stopped and stared up at the shop. There, on the cold ground, among the patches of couch grass, he found a tiny cog.
It resembled those he was used to seeing in the carriage clocks his da let him repair, only this one was bent out of shape and covered in warm engine oil, viscous as drying blood. Robert knew it could mean only one thing: the fox was clockwork – a mechanimal.
He wiped the cog on his trousers and put it in his pocket, then he set off across the village, following the mech’s route.
He passed the church and was about to turn off behind the airstation workers’ cottages, down Pincher’s Alley, when he heard footsteps in the lane behind.
He turned to see a large leashed dog, an unusual breed, like an Alsatian but bigger. As it came closer he saw its skin was covered in rivets. A mech-dog, then. It was followed by four men in long overcoats, carrying steam-rifles and lanterns – like those he’d seen from his window.
He shuffled aside to let them pass but they gathered round, letting their mech-dog sniff at him. When it got a good noseful of the oily mark on his trouser leg, it let out a low growl.
“Shut it!” one of the men told the mechanimal.
“Seen anything go past?” another asked Robert.
“Anything unusual?” added a third.
The fourth man didn’t say anything, merely glared.
Robert decided not to answer their questions. He didn’t like the look of them.
A big fellow with ginger mutton-chop sideburns arrived, carrying a steam-rifle. His body looked lumpen, like a sack of rocks. He resembled a crusher, only without the policeman’s helmet; above his upturned collar his cheeks were as red as bulging blood sausages.
But what made Robert gulp was the pair of silver mirrors sewn into the raw sockets of the man’s eyes. Scars emanated from them, criss-crossing his cheeks, and running up under the brim of his hat.
“Who are you?” the man demanded, peering down a vein-blistered nose, until Robert’s face appeared, reflected, in his mirrored eyes.
Robert’s words dried in his throat. He took a deep breath. “I live here, Sir,” he finally managed to wheeze.
“My colleagues asked if you’d seen anything unusual go past.” The mutton-chopped man scratched at his eye socket, perilously close to his mirrored right eye.
“What kind of a thing?” Robert asked, his voice a strangled whisper.
“A fox.” The mutton-chopped man pressed his thick lips together tightly. It seemed as if he was about to reveal something more, but then he decided against it. “Never mind.” He jabbed a podgy finger at Robert. “Get back to your house.”
“I saw your fox run that way,” Robert blurted, pointing down the street that led out of town.
“You’re certain?” The mutton-chopped man’s mirrors betrayed nothing, but he didn’t seem convinced. He glanced down at the dog straining on its leash; pulling towards the alley.
“Oh yes,” Robert answered. “I watched it from my window.”
“Which window?”
“One over there.” He waved at the row of shops on the other side of the village, keeping it vague, in case the men were thinking of returning.
The mutton-chopped man nodded. “Thanks, lad. We’ll be getting along, and you should too. A young boy like you oughtn’t to be out on a cold November morning when there’s danger about.” He turned to go, and the others and the dog followed.