Clockwork Angels: The Novel (34 page)

Owen scrambled among the debris strewn about from the impact (though the mess looked no more disorganized than before), grabbing one of the pilot’s long knives, which he used to saw through the ropes that connected the air sacks to the hull. He succeeded in cutting away the heavy canvas and cast it overboard, and at last he could see where he was.

Under the open sky, Owen looked at the stars as his boat drifted along.

All that you can do is wish them well

H
e drifted for days in the battered hull of the crashed airship.

He ate the food stored aboard; he caught water from a brief but enthusiastic rain squall, which quenched his thirst but also made his clothes wet and uncomfortable.

With no maps, he had no idea how far away the coast of Albion might be. He didn’t know what time it was, didn’t even know the date or the day of the week. Most surprising was that it didn’t matter to him.

He spent a gray day in a thickening mist that smothered the view, but there was nothing to see anyway. The fog reminded him of the fog around his own life. The Redrock Desert wasn’t the only place with mirages. . . .

His daydreams had made him ripe for the picking, and both the Anarchist and the Watchmaker wanted to pluck him for themselves. He had made his own decisions—or so he thought—but, reflecting on how his life had proceeded, and unraveled, he wondered how much of it had been his free will and how much had been subtle manipulations. Watchmaker and Anarchist had set him in motion like a windup toy. On that first night, if the Anarchist had not drugged Lavinia, would she have come out to meet him at midnight? And if she had done that one small daring thing, would Owen have contented himself with that faint taste of excitement? He would always wonder.

With his ruthless Regulators, the Watchmaker had caused him grief, inflicted hardships, made certain that Owen’s innocent choice to leave his village resulted in as much misery as possible. That was his intent? To punish a single honeybee that decided to stray from the hexagonal lines? If the Watchmaker had simply let Owen see the marvelous sights of the big city, have his little adventure, the young man would probably have gone home to Barrel Arbor and settled down, happy enough to tell his stories in the Tick Tock Tavern.

Instead, the two men had caught him in their own trap, played a tug of war with him. Because he was so innocent and optimistic, they had fought over him, broken and humiliated him—all to
prove a point
. He was glad to be quit of both of them.

Eventually, he heard a growling sound in the distance, a rumbling roar that could have been curling waves striking a beach, or maybe just another bank of deadly reefs. He tried to discern anything through the mist; unable to change course, he hoped his fragile ship would not be smashed against the rocks.

Eventually, as the sound of breakers grew louder, the folds of mist parted to reveal the gray line of a slumbering shore, a pebbly beach and sandy cliffs—not jagged reefs that would tear his boat to pieces.

Owen stood up in the drifting airship, strained to see any fishing boats, shore settlements, or tidepool harvesters, but he saw only an uninhabited expanse. At least it was land . . . surely, the coast of Albion.

When the unguided boat drew close to the unknown shore, Owen decided to slide overboard and swim the rest of the way. He took only the satchel of diamonds and watch jewels—which would be useful for buying food, clothes, lodging—and slid into the cold water. He swam to the rocky beach and eventually climbed out on solid land, dripping, shivering. He was no longer adrift, but he couldn’t say he was saved.

He trudged past clumps of sad-looking seaweed and picked his way up the crumbling sandy slope to the top of the headlands. His clothes were crusted with salt. The air was damp and chill, but he warmed himself by walking at a brisk pace over untracked grasslands. He was sure that if he kept going he would stumble upon an isolated village somewhere, a place he could buy food, clothes, and a place to rest.

Farther inland, he found a rutted road, which made his heart lighter. He would have been more pleased to see steamliner tracks, but a road had to lead
somewhere
, or else why would anyone make it?

The fog remained his persistent companion as he followed the track over the moors. He came upon a wide field that had been trampled, the grass and heather matted, many footprints and wheel indentations in the soft ground. It looked as if some army had gathered here—he wanted nothing to do with armies. Or maybe, he thought with a spark of optimism that still managed to stay alight, it was a festival. . . .

He stopped to listen and heard only the air, not a bird call, not even a rustle of leaves or grass, despite a faint breeze. Then the sound of paper fluttering in the wind broke the stillness, a crumpled sheet blowing aimlessly. It danced across the top of a puddle and nudged up against a hummock of grass: a colorful but wadded broadsheet. Owen trotted after it, but the capricious wind sent the paper skittering away, and he caught it just a second after it came to rest on a muddy puddle.

He yanked the paper out of the water, shook brown drops from it, and opened the crumpled sheet. The printing was familiar to him, since he had posted many such broadsheets himself. Even so, Owen held the paper without comprehension, as if he were more blind than the haberdasher in Crown City.

The Magnusson Carnival Extravaganza
Final Show of the Season

He looked around the trampled meadow, imagining echoes of the crowds, the carny barkers, the clowns, the raucous music, the creaking rides, and the laughing children.

He followed the fresh wheel ruts and a large bootprint pressed into the muddy side of the path. Despite his hunger and exhaustion, he increased his speed as the road widened, leading him through spotty trees to an intersection with another rutted road that extended to equally unknown country in another direction.

Near the intersection stood three well-kept houses with whitewashed walls, open shutters, oak trees in the yard. A beefy woman worked in the front, bending over a wash basket, extracting wet clothes and flapping them out, humming to herself. She clipped the clothes onto a rope strung from the oak tree to the house, hanging them out to dry, though to what effect, Owen didn’t know because the day remained cloudy and dreary. Obviously, she was an optimist herself.

He hurried forward, calling out, but his throat was dry and the words were reluctant to come. She heard him nevertheless and looked up in surprise. He held up the wrinkled broadsheet advertising the carnival. “Were they here?” he finally managed to say as he came up to her.

She eyed him up and down, concerned more about his disheveled appearance than what a stranger might be doing on the road. “The carnival? You’re too late. They played yesterday, headed off this morning.” She smiled. “You look as if you could use some hot soup. And a bath. I could warm up the stove, heat some broth and some water—”

Owen’s stomach growled, but he knew he couldn’t stay. “They left this morning?”

She jerked her head toward the crossroads, indicating the perpendicular track. “They headed off that way. Carnival season is over.”

He made sure to thank her before he hurried onto the road. He knew how slowly the loaded carnival caravan traveled as they made their way to the next destination. When Owen thought to look behind him toward the cluster of houses, he had already left them far behind. His feet knew where they were going.

The mist and clouds dissipated, leaving a patchy blue sky. Climbing a swell, he heard noises ahead and topped the rise to look down into a comfortable tree-lined valley.

And he saw the carnival.

Owen stared at the colorful pavilions, the game booths, the sleeping tents, the steam wagons, and the components of the Ferris Wheel.

A brusque voice made him snap his head around. “Halt! Who goes there?”

A wiry man stepped out of the trees and came toward him brandishing a narrow sword. Owen’s mouth fell open. “Tomio!”

The other man dropped his sword and ran to sweep Owen into a hearty embrace. “It’s Owenhardy from Barrel Arbor, returned to us at last! Now, there’s a trick better than any I’ve ever performed.” He stood back, looked at the young man’s bedraggled form. “You’re a frightful mess. You shouldn’t let Francesca see you like this.” Before Owen could say anything, Tomio grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the main carny camp. “We’ve got a visitor!”

The carnies turned to see who the stranger might be. Owen’s stomach knotted, but he couldn’t turn down the help. And he was brave enough to face anything, even Francesca. After all he had done and seen, he realized that
this
was what had made him happiest.

Louisa the bearded lady was the first to rush to him. “There’s our dear boy back among us, where he belongs. Get this lad some food and some clothes!” Louisa tugged on his hair. “He could use a haircut too. And a shave—and probably a good night’s sleep.”

“First things first.” César Magnusson came forward, propping hands on hips and regarding him. Magnusson wore no polished top hat, and his short dark hair was slicked back. But the ringmaster looked different without a mustache on his face; the extravagant handlebar had been one of his most distinctive features.

Owen looked at the man strangely. “What happened to your mustache?”

Magnusson brushed the comment aside with a laugh. “I just didn’t apply it this morning. No need to keep up the charade, now that we’re off season.”

Owen realized something else that had been right in front of him all along. The ringmaster had loosened the buttons on the vest, no longer hiding the swell of breasts beneath the shirt. “You’re a woman!”

“Always have been. Real name is Cassandra, not César. It’s just a haircut, a false mustache, and a name. The carnival has to keep up appearances.”

Tomio flexed his sword. “My mother is good at her own illusions.”

“Mother?” Owen asked.

“I have to maintain the disguise because some obscure ruling in the Annals of Law forbids women from owning circuses.” Magnusson rolled her eyes. “A slow day in the lawmaker’s offices, that was. Even my grandmother can’t explain it. The Watchmaker has too many silly rules.”

Then, as if field lines began to thrum through the ground, Owen felt a presence nearby, heard a quick silence among the carnies. He turned to see Francesca coming toward him, her black hair long and lush, her face as beautiful as ever, her lips quirked in a private smile. “About time you came back, Owenhardy. How long did you expect me to wait for you?”

“You were . . .
waiting
for me?” Owen’s heart did flips more complicated than any trapeze act Francesca had ever performed. “But you laughed at me. You turned me down and made it clear you wanted nothing further to do with me. You said you wouldn’t be trapped.”

She shook her head with a sincere sigh. “Oh, Owen, you have such an imagination, such a good heart, and I love that part of you. But you took me by surprise. I wasn’t laughing at
you
—just at the suggestion that I’d be content to stay forever in a small town. Can you imagine me settling in Barrel Arbor? To be honest, I never dreamed that you, yourself, could be content with that anymore.”

When Owen swayed on his feet, it had little to do with weariness or hunger. He had given no thought to how
she
might have heard his proposal. Not trapped by marrying him, but trapped in one small place. When he looked at Francesca now, compared her to the bland and quiet Lavinia, he could not imagine this amazing and energetic woman as the mousy wife of an assistant apple orchard manager.

Francesca stepped closer. “You ran off without giving me a chance to suggest that you stay among us. Then I might have given your proposal a different answer.”

Owen had trouble finding words. “You would want that?”

As her answer, she kissed him.

The Magnusson Extravaganza was heading toward a place where they often spent the winter. During carnival season, they traveled their Watchmaker-approved route around Albion, and afterward, they retreated far from the Watchmaker’s territory to an off-season home where they relaxed and enjoyed one another’s company.

Owen could barely remember the wide-eyed young man who had left Barrel Arbor, who had become an adult upon reaching his seventeenth birthday, and then had become a man after continuing his journey. Finally, over the course of it all, he had become an
individual
by getting to know himself as well as the world and by making his own choices.

On a hill outside of the carny camp, he found a stunted old apple tree, part of some long-forgotten orchard that was now overgrown and wild. He sat down to think, because he knew that was what he had to do.

Francesca walked toward him through the grass, intent, as if she were crossing a tightrope. Owen didn’t say anything to her, and they sat together, staring at the clouds. She pointed. “That one looks like a horse.”

He was startled. “Yes, it does.” But he looked at her instead of at the clouds. “You see it.”