Clockwork Angels: The Novel (4 page)

As the evening wound down, he and his father spent a few quiet hours in their cottage. Anton Hardy sat by the fire with a sharpened pencil and his ledger, going over how many barrels of fresh cider were to be delivered, how many would remain in storage to ferment into hard cider, how many were reserved for vinegar, and how much the Watchmaker allowed him to charge for each. Every villager had a role to play, and all accounts balanced.

Finished, Owen’s father set the ledger aside and began reading the Barrel Arbor newspaper, which was little more than a weekly compilation of newsgraph reports from Crown City, thoughtprovoking statements from the Clockwork Angels, and a few local-interest stories that Lavinia’s parents wrote and appended to each edition.

The current issue had an early announcement of Owen’s impending birthday, to which Mrs. Paquette had added a small comment, “And we hope to have more substantial news to report on this matter soon.” By tradition, of course, his betrothal to Lavinia was more than likely.

Owen had already read the newspaper and was more interested in looking at the well-thumbed volumes he had taken down from the high shelf. Reading
Before the Stability
that afternoon had disturbed him, but several publications were dear to his heart, the picture books he had loved as a child: beautiful hardbound volumes with tipped-in chronotypes, color plates specially treated with a reactive alchemical gloss that gave the reader a giddy feeling of looking
into
the image.

First, he paged through the picture book of Crown City, dwelling on the poignant chronotype of the Angels, the most famous symbol of the Watchmaker’s ordered world. Four graceful female figures installed in Chronos Square, looming high above the crowds—symbolic, yet utterly perfect, divine machines who spread their wings to dispense grace on humanity. Though he could barely remember his mother, Owen was sure that each of the four Clockwork Angels must have been molded with her face.

The second volume was even more inspiring, though none of it was real. Legends of sea monsters and mythical beasts, centaurs, griffins, dragons, basilisks . . . and imaginary places far from Albion, including the wondrous Seven Cities of Gold, collectively called Cíbola. These volumes were so old that they had been printed before the Stability; after reading about the chaotic times in the pedlar’s book, he considered it a wonder that any publication had survived that turmoil.

Owen was so intent on the book that he didn’t notice his father standing behind him. Anton Hardy had never forbidden his son from looking at the books, but neither had he approved of the young man’s fascination.

Startled, Owen tried to close the cover, but his father reached out to stop him. In the vivid chronotype on the page, sunlight gleamed through an exotic rock formation in the Redrock Desert. Together, the two stared down at the fanciful pristine towers of intricate stone, the amazing architecture of the Seven Cities of Gold.

“These were your mother’s books. And I miss her too.” Anton Hardy held his hand on the page for a long moment, staring down, but no longer seeming to see the illustration. “I miss her too,” he said again in a faint voice, barely a whisper. “Ah, Hanneke . . .” Owen had never heard such emotion in his father’s voice before.

The emotion was gone as quickly as it came. “Soon enough, it’ll be time to put away these books for good, lock away that part of the past. The Watchmaker says we can’t make time stand still. Don’t look back, but take the time to look around you now.”

“But it’s all we have left of Mother—these books and our memories.”

“You have to look forward,” Anton said. “Once you become an adult, the Watchmaker has expectations. You must put all this foolishness behind you.”

Owen closed the book but kept it on his lap. In his quiet, ordered world, he’d never been allowed any “foolishness” in the first place.

His father turned the coldfire lanterns down to a comforting glow. “Time to wind the clocks.” Before getting ready for bed, the two went through their ritual. Owen turned the key in the mantle clock and wound the spring; his father did the same with the kitchen clock. Owen hung the counterweight and sent the pendulum swinging in the main grandfather clock. They went from clock to clock, shelf to shelf, room to room. As a final check, Owen poked his head outside and looked at Barrel Arbor’s main clocktower to verify that the time was accurate and every tick was right in the Watchmaker’s world.

Every night, this was time he and his father spent together, but because they took such care to maintain the clocks, they didn’t actually
spend
the time at all: they saved it. Not one second was allowed to slip away.

When they were done and his father was satisfied, he bade Owen goodnight. “I’ll stay up just a little longer,” Owen said. He usually did.

Saddened by the reminder of his lost wife, his father didn’t object to letting Owen look at the picture books some more.

Sitting alone, Owen’s pulse raced as he thought of his planned foolishness for midnight. Only two more hours before he would slip out and meet sweet Lavinia for a stolen kiss. Although he knew it would be over in a moment, the memory would last for a long time.

After he turned seventeen and the rest of the Watchmaker’s safety net wrapped around him, he would have no further opportunity to be so impetuous. He intended to make the best of it.

On my way at last

H
is father was quietly snoring by 10:06 p.m., but Owen wasn’t sleepy at all. Even the synchronous ticking of the clocks in the house failed to lull him. Anticipation was a tightly wound spring inside.

The more he thought about it, the more surprised Owen was by his impulse. What had driven him to suggest it? In Barrel Arbor, decent people didn’t sneak out at midnight. He and Lavinia were a comfortable pair who spent most days together doing their assigned tasks, compatible, clearly intended for each other in the scheme of things. None of the villagers gave a second thought to seeing him in the young woman’s company, but the two were not yet betrothed, and Owen could imagine quite a scandal if anyone discovered that they were meeting in secret long after dark.

Which made the idea all the more exciting . . .

He hoped Lavinia was as captivated by the thought as he was. This daring little escapade would be something they’d both remember and pointedly
not
tell their children. As they grew older and settled in their lives, who would believe that reliable, predictable Owen and Lavinia Hardy had been reckless or impetuous in their youth? He laughed at the very idea that his own father might have done the same when he was young. But maybe his adventurous mother . . .

He daydreamed that Hanneke had gone off to see the world, that she had visited the Seven Cities of Gold, that she had ridden steamliners and found distant shores. Someday, maybe he and Lavinia would also run off, explore the enticing continent of Atlantis. The thought of his mother still miraculously alive, a queen of some lost country, brought a smile to his face; she would welcome her son and his beautiful wife as a prince and princess. They would feast on hundreds of types of fruit, instead of just apples!

He kept trying to imagine Lavinia traveling with him, but his thoughts wandered off. . . .

He woke with a start and saw by the ticking bedside clock that it was 11:28. Only half an hour before midnight—still plenty of time, but he felt rushed. He pulled on his trousers and gray homespun shirt, took a small sack with two apples, thinking that he and Lavinia might sit together for a while under the starlight. It would be nice if he recited poetry to her, but Owen didn’t know any poems.

The door creaked as he pushed it open. He slipped outside, closing it quietly behind him so his father would never know anything was amiss. He made his way up the streets, past the dark cottages and their slumbering inhabitants, beyond the cold and silent racks of the Huang beehives that produced more honey than the village could possibly use. The town’s angel statue appeared pale and ethereal under the stars. The night was bright as he climbed the path that led through the close rows of apple trees and reached the top of the orchard hill.

Lavinia wasn’t there, although he had hoped she might come early. He checked his pocketwatch—ten minutes until midnight. The Watchmaker claimed that punctuality was the surest demonstration of love.

While waiting, Owen looked up at the stars, tracing the constellations that he knew from books, but rarely saw for himself. Barrel Arbor villagers got up with the first light of dawn and spent little time outside late at night pondering star patterns. The study of such things, as well as the phases of the moon, movements of planets, combinations of elements, and magic, was the province of expert alchemist-priests, not simple country folk. The Watchmaker understood the clockwork universe, and he told his people everything they needed to know.

To Owen, the assortment of bright lights in the sky looked distressingly random, so he decided to pick out his own patterns, drawing lines, connecting dots. Were his proposed constellations any less valid than the ones in official books? How did the stars know which patterns the Watchmaker imposed?

He became so engrossed in his own thoughts that he lost track of time. Still no sign of Lavinia. He glanced at his pocketwatch and saw it was five past midnight. With a sinking heart, he gazed through the shadowed orchard trying to see the path leading down the hill. He heard no one approaching, no swish of skirts as she hurried toward him. Maybe she had overslept.

By 12:36, she still had not shown up. He feared that something bad had happened to her. Her house might have caught on fire! But he saw no flames down in the village. Maybe her parents had learned of her illicit plan and locked her inside. But how could they have known?

He waited another ten minutes, then ventured down the path calling her name in a heavy whisper, but there was no response. No one else was abroad at night. Could she have taken another path? He hurried back up to the top of the hill.

By 1:15 a.m., Owen knew that she wasn’t going to come. She had let him down.

The real reason whispered around his ears, though he didn’t want to hear it. Lavinia hadn’t come simply because
she hadn’t
. She had been afraid, or simply unwilling, to bend the rules and break her habits. Now that he thought about it, Owen realized she hadn’t taken his bold suggestion seriously at all. Warm and content in her own bed, sleeping peacefully, she probably did not believe that he had been serious. A stolen kiss at midnight under the stars—what a silly idea.

You must put all this foolishness behind you.

In another few weeks, he was going to have to put his dreams away on a high shelf. It didn’t seem fair. All his life he had followed the rules. He had done what was expected of him rather than what he wanted; every day mapped out, every event scheduled, every part of his existence moving along like a tiny gear in an infinite chain of other tiny gears, each one turning smoothly, but never going anywhere.

In the distance, he heard a clanging sound, that haunting faroff passage bell, and he turned to see the pillar of steam as a caravan of swollen steamliners chugged out of the mountains, drifting down out of the sky to the rails that followed the river in the valley below.

From the printed schedules, he knew that a steamliner rolled past Barrel Arbor at 1:27 a.m. each night, though he had never been awake to see or hear it. He caught his breath.

On impulse, just to prove that he could, Owen ran down from the top of orchard hill toward the valley, not looking for any path through the tall dewy grasses. Clutching his satchel of apples, he ran as fast as he could without tripping. He could go right to the rails and watch the magnificent caravan roll by, so close he could touch it.

Even though Lavinia hadn’t joined him, he vowed to do
something
exciting this night. What if he never had the opportunity again? What if, when he became an adult, even the very ideas died within him? At least he would see a steamliner up close, and that would be something to remember.