Clockwork Twist : Waking (13 page)

The next morning, Twist returned to his work as soon as he could.  Arabel insisted that he eat something first, and refused to let him off the ship until he had.  Having finally forced down a piece of toast and a half cup of coffee, Twist managed to get himself back into the palace.

The ghostly emotions that had threatened him the night before seemed diminished in the light of day.  He re-lit his candle and set out his tools before Aazzi came to join him.  She retook her post, sitting on the stairs, and Twist resumed his work.

He took apart the rest of the right arm, cleaning and repairing every piece before reassembling it.  Next, he moved on to her other hand, and then her other arm, until both lay in gleaming perfection at her sides.  He then carefully lifted her head, placing it in his lap as he began to repair the damage there, sweeping the tangled mass of her wire hair to the side.  Gazing down into her beautiful young face, frozen in terrible fear and horror, Twist had to focus very hard on not letting his mind wander to the emotions that surrounded his thoughts.  This was much harder as he realized that many of the worst feelings of sadness and lament were actually his own.

Once he had finished repairing her glimmering, silver encased, blue jewel eyes and closed them to give her face a more peaceful appearance, it became steadily more difficult to keep his focus where it needed to be.

“Twist, dear,” Aazzi said, drawing his foggy attention to her.  She was rubbing at her temple, her face showing weariness. “It's been four hours.  Shouldn't you have a break?”

“Four hours?” Twist asked, finding it hard to find meaning in the thought.

“Almost four and a half,” Aazzi said, glancing at her own small silver pocket watch.

“Time and I have never really gotten on,” Twist said with a sigh.  He carefully took the clockwork girl's head from his lap and placed it gently on the floor again before he got up.  The moment he got to his feet, he realized that his back was stiff, his neck was beginning to ache, and a headache was blooming brightly behind his eyes.

“Oh heavens,” Twist said softly, holding his head to keep it from spinning.

“Are you all right?” Aazzi asked.

“I shall be,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Thank you.  I do need a break.”

Aazzi left the hall with Twist, pulling the black hood far over her face before she did, and she hurried quickly back to the ship the moment the sunlight fell on her.  Twist walked slowly through the overgrown garden, pulling at his tight muscles and letting his mind wander aimlessly through the rich, untamed green expanse.

There was something beautiful about the way the leaves of the single, huge tree in the center of the garden fluttered in the sunlight.  The thin atmosphere made the colors seem brighter, sharper, and deeper even with the occasional waft of mist that wandered through the open spaces.  For a moment, Twist could perfectly understand why the princess and her family had wanted to build this palace in the first place.  If it were in its original condition, Twist would want to stay as well.

Twist sat on a block of stone that had once been part of a low wall and let the cool, damp air soothe his exhausted senses.  Fragments of thoughts, images, and distant emotions ebbed and flowed like ocean waves in the back of his mind.  For a long while, he just let them dance as they willed.  It seemed like an enormous effort to push them away, and his strength was hard to find.  After a few minutes, though, his own thoughts came back to him.

Getting up again, Twist headed to the airship.  Just as he expected, Jonas was on the open deck again, lying on his back and gazing up at the sky.  He was listening to his recorded music again as well.  Twist stepped closer, careful not to watch his eyes too closely.  Sure enough, Jonas glanced in his direction once the buzz in Twist's neck grew prominent.

“Twist, you look awful,” Jonas said, taking the headphones off his ears.

“I knew you would cheer me up,” Twist muttered, coming close and sitting down on the deck beside Jonas.

“Am I mad, or are you learning the subtle art of snark?” Jonas asked brightly, looking away with his uncovered eyes.

“Too much time with you, I'm sure,” Twist said, rubbing at his neck.  The vibration of Jonas's presence seemed to be helping his tired muscles to relax.

“So, what brings you out of the horrible haunted palace?” Jonas asked, lying back again to look up at the sky.

“A break,” Twist said with a shrug.

“Wonderful idea,” Jonas said.  He held the headphones out to Twist. “Here, I've got Beethoven’s Ninth playing now.  The good part is just getting started.”

Twist took the offer, put on the headphones, and let the familiar Ode to Joy wash over him with the warm sunlight.  He leaned back, lying beside Jonas on the deck, and watched the high, thin clouds pass slowly by in long streams of silver white.  The low, constant electric murmur of Jonas ran gently down his spine and drowned out every thought of his work on the clockwork princess.

By the time the recorded symphony had come almost to its close, Arabel's curious face came into Twist's vision.  He pulled one earphone off slightly and frowned up at her.

“What?”

“You two certainly know how to relax, I'll give you that,” she said with a smile.

“You're mussing up my calm,” Jonas muttered with a whine on his voice. “Don't you have a hobby yet?”

“Just the same one as always,” Arabel said, crouching down to tussle his hair.

“Oh, bothering me, you mean,” Jonas snapped, swatting at her.

“Of course!” Arabel said, almost laughing.

“You're mussing up my calm now, too,” Twist said, disappointed to hear the music fall into nothing at its end.  He pulled off the headphones and handed them back to Jonas. “Do you need something?” he asked, leaning up on an elbow to look at Arabel properly.

“Uncle Howell would like to know how much longer it will take you to finish your work,” Arabel said with a sigh. “I told him it would take a while, just looking at all the damage.”

“I'm not sure,” Twist said, sitting up.  After the rest, he noticed he really did feel much better. “I haven't begun on her core or her legs yet.  The head is going to take a while on its own.  There are a lot of intricate pieces in her neck as well.  Did you know that her face is actually a layered collection of plates that can slide over each other to allow her to have real expressions like a human face?”

“So, a few more days then?” Arabel asked.

“At least,” Twist said, nodding.

“Are you going to be all right for that long?” Jonas asked, looking concerned.

“What do you mean?” Twist asked.

“It's obvious that working on her is taking a lot out of you.  It hasn't even been a full day yet and you already look a bit ragged.”

“I'll be fine,” Twist said with a dismissive wave. “I've worked on complex mechanisms before.  It's tiring, but it's not a problem.”

“Have you ever tried to fix something with its own soul before?” Jonas asked. “You got stuck last night, and you were almost overcome when you touched her the first time.  There's no telling what the added strain of her personality is doing to your Sight.”

“But he's the only one who can do this,” Arabel said to Jonas.

“That doesn't mean it's safe for him to rush it,” Jonas said instantly.

“I'll be fine!” Twist said, drawing both of their attentions. “Really.  It's not a problem.  Aazzi is keeping the ghost away, and working is helping me to keep everything else at the back of my mind.  It's just going to take a while.”

“If you say so,” Jonas said on a heavy breath as he lay back down. “I just don't think there's anything wrong with taking your time.”

“If it's going to take more than a week, we'll need to leave to get provisions,” Arabel said.  “It's all right if we need to,” she said, seeing the look on Twist's face. “We just need to know.”

“Let me see how far I can get tonight,” Twist said, feeling his headache kick back up again. “I'll try to assess how much work there still is to do and then let you know.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Arabel said brightly.

Not wanting to waste time, Twist headed back to work shortly after that.  With Aazzi back at her post and the candle lit, Twist returned to working on the clockwork face, head and neck.  By the time the light began to fall again, he had finished cleaning and adjusting the thin plates of the face, and left it in a peaceful expression.

Aazzi all but dragged him away to have something to eat, but Twist returned instantly afterward to finish working on the neck.  His headache became a constant pressure behind his eyes, and his neck continually tightened no matter how he tried to remember to move it once in a while.  Twist's senses also dulled slowly over time until he simply grew accustomed to finding his mind wandering onto thoughts that had nothing to do with his work.  Slight memories and feelings that didn't belong to him wafted through his thoughts regardless of how he tried to focus.

After a while, Twist lost the strength to notice or care.

Twist worked on as time dragged long and silently around him.  The ghost seemed to grow more active, drawing more and more of Aazzi's attention, as the night deepened.  Twist eventually stopped paying attention to anything beyond the detailed and delicate work of repairing the extensive damage.  He didn't notice at all as the air around him grew cold, and the light of the candle dimmed below that of the late, thin, new moon that poured through the broken windows.

A hand, small and gentle, fell to rest lightly on his arm with a frigid cold that soaked through his coat to chill his skin.  Twist braced against the vision he expected from the touch, but nothing came.  His mind remained still, drowned as it was in the tiny visions he got from the clockwork in his hands.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked from close beside him, young, sweet, and deeply familiar to his imagination.

Twist looked up to see a face his heart knew well, but his eyes had never seen.  Barely more than a child, beautiful and untouched by time, the fairytale princess of his imagination looked at him curiously through shining black eyes, as she sat at his side.  Her delicate, pale fingers lingered on his arm, and still no vision came.  In his total astonishment, it took Twist far too long to realize that the girl beside him was human, and not the clockwork puppet that lay on the floor.  He stared, mesmerized by the childlike beauty of her face, the long, soft tail of shining black hair that hung from the crown of her head to the floor, and the glittering pink silks that wrapped her slight form in flowing wafts.

“Do you speak?” she asked, smiling slightly.

“I, well … yes but,” Twist muttered as his thoughts struggled to grasp some form of meaning.  He looked down to see the still unfinished clockwork puppet on the floor before him. “I'm trying to fix you,” he said softly.

“That puppet is broken,” the princess said coldly. “It's not me.”

Looking back up, Twist began to understand. “You're the ghost.”

“No, I'm me,” the girl said as if he were being silly. “To be a ghost, you have to die.  I never have.”

“But you're haunting this place,” Twist said, trying desperately to hold his thoughts together in the face of her enchanting smile.

“You're funny,” she said, smiling deeper. “Who are you?” she asked, reaching up and toying idly with the soft curls behind his ear.  The chill of her touch sent a shiver down Twist's spine, but still no vision came.  For a moment, he lost himself in the foreign sensation of her harmless touch.

“Twist,” he said, finally. “My name is Twist.”

“That's a nice name.  Where are you from?” she asked, a curious expression on her face as she wrapped a lock of his hair around her finger.

“London,” he said, holding utterly still for fear she might take her hands away from him.

“Where's that?” she asked brightly. “Is it far away?”

“Very far.  It's on the other side of Europe.”

“Europe?” the girl asked with a wide smile. “Oh, that is far away.  And you came all this way just to fix my puppet?”

“I have,” he said, surprised at his own pride. “I should be finished soon.  Then you will be able to return to it.”

Her smile faded and she leaned closer still, staring into his eyes and holding very tight to his arm with both hands. “You mean that I will be able to dance again?” she asked softly, her eyes pleading with his.

“I'm sure you will,” he said, his heart now racing under her intense attention.

“That's wonderful!” she cried in glee, wrapping him in her arms.  Stunned and reduced to nothing but pure instinct, Twist's hands found her slight waist and he held her gently.  Her body felt real and solid in his arms, but her skin was as cold as ice.

“You are wonderful, too,” the princess said, pulling back just enough to smile at him with her cold arms still around his neck. “I can't wait to dance again!” she said, falling into a happy, bubbly laugh.

Twist watched silently, totally lost in her.  He no longer cared how she was here.  He didn't care if this was real or a dream.  All he wanted was to stay in her arms and watch her joy.  It seemed sweeter to him than any happiness he had ever felt before.

“
Twist?
” another voice called from far away, echoing off the walls.  It sounded frightened, but Twist couldn't imagine why.  The princess jerked, looking around.

“What is that?” she asked, pulling herself close against Twist and fitting her head into the crook of his neck. “Is it the others?  I don't like them!  Make them leave!”

“It's all right,” Twist said, holding her. “They won't hurt you.”

“
Twist!
” the voice called out again, still sounding frightened and frantic. “
Wake up!
”

“Make them leave!” the princess said again, her voice edged with tears. “I won't give you up.  You're not like them.  I want you to stay with me.”

“This is a dream,” Twist said, mostly to himself. “They are worried for me,” he said gently, pulling his lips closer to her ear. “Let me tell them that I'm all right.  I won't leave you.  I promise.”

The princess pulled away to look in his eyes, searching them uncertainly.

“Trust me,” Twist said, stroking the soft silk on her back. “I've crossed half the world just to help you.  I only need to talk to them for a moment.”

“You promise,” she said, still uncertain. “If you lie, I'll never forgive you.”

“I'd never lie to you,” Twist said, smiling softly. “It would break my heart.”

She smiled slightly, looking somewhat convinced.  She got to her feet and stepped away as the rest of the world fell totally black.  In the absence of her, a familiar electrical sensation burned to life, far away in the unknown blackness.  Twist caught it and pulled hard, following it back into the light.