Mechanica (8 page)

She even talked to me as she ate. “Go into town today,” she said, pricking open her yolk with the tines of her fork, “and consult the milliner. You’ll need plenty of fabric for the dresses Piety and Chastity described to me last night.” She shook her head fondly. “They always know how to look their best, bless their hearts. They’ll grow out of this vanity when they marry, as I did, but Brother Lane says there’s no harm in letting girls be girls.”

She looked up at me as she said this, the first time we’d made eye contact all morning. I was expected to look at her whenever I was in her presence, of course, but she rarely returned the favor.

She scowled. “Put your hair up,” she said. “There’s no need to let it hang down your back like a harlot. Whom are you trying to attract?”

I pulled my worn shawl over my head and wrapped my hair inside it, then tied it in a large knot behind my neck. Visions of Piety’s waist-length hair sprang to mind, but I ignored them. Never mind that binding my hair up tightly gave me headaches—in Stepmother’s eyes, my only motive was to lure away one of her daughters’ many suitors.

Piety and Chastity appeared at the top of the stairs. They walked down slowly, gracefully, posing for each other as they went. Their soft cotton nightgowns floated around their ankles. I scratched at my rough linen bodice.

“I want bacon,” yawned skinny Piety. She smirked at Chastity, who was watching her plump figure and would have only dry toast this morning. Each sister secretly envied the other’s shape, but of course they would never admit it.

“My dear girls,” crooned Stepmother, “Nick is going into town today. Please tell her your wishes for your new wardrobe—particularly your ball gowns. She’ll want to start working on them right away.”

Oh, yes,
I thought.
I can’t wait.

Piety wanted a white gown, cap-sleeved. “Bridal,” she sighed, her eyes glazing over. “Cream lace all over and orange blossoms in my hair.”

Chastity cut in. “Satin for me,” she purred, “bright white, like an angel.”

Piety prodded Chastity’s round arms. “She’ll want long sleeves,” she snickered.

Chastity yanked Piety’s hair, and they both shrieked.

Stepmother glared at them, and they sat down quickly and silently.

“I should go,” I said. “I’ll need as much time as possible.”

Chastity snorted. “You’ll get as much time as we give you,” she said.

“Where’s my bacon?” asked Piety.

T
HREE
hours later, I finally walked out the door, wondering when I would ever have time for my own work. As I hurried to the Woodshire town center, one meager street of little shops, I contemplated ways to get supplies. There was more than one abandoned machine along the overgrown road into Woodshire: I passed a rusted-out water heater, a chisel plow, and a small, bent carriage frame. I eyed all of them eagerly, but the metal was too degraded to be reworked or even salvaged. The only parts worth saving were the thin rubber tires on the carriage wheels, but even they were dubiously weathered; besides, Mother’s workshop was fairly well stocked already. And I needed plenty of things for the Exposition that I’d never find at the side of a road: fine cloth for a new dress of my own, for instance, if I wanted anyone to take my wares—and me—seriously. Stepmother had credit at the milliner’s, but she’d receive an itemized list of her charges at the end of the month. I couldn’t add anything extra for myself without her knowing.

I realized as I thought these things that I had already decided to attend the Exposition, that I wasn’t just daydreaming about it. The ball didn’t interest me as much, but if I could show my work, the designs I had begun conceiving during late nights in the workshop, maybe I could finally become a real inventor, like Mother had been.

The milliner and tailor was a dour middle-aged man named Mr. Waters, slow to speak and rather joyless. But he was always honest and fair in his trade, and I respected him.

He looked up through a scruff of lank salt-and-pepper hair when I entered the shop. The bell on the door frame rang a second time as the door bounced shut behind me. Curtains covered the windows, protecting the many-colored bolts of fabric from sun damage. I consulted my scribbled list, depressed by the Steps’ lack of imagination.

“Good morning,” I said, as cheerfully as I could muster. “I need white today. Lots and lots of white.”

Mr. Waters didn’t answer. At first I assumed this was only his customary curtness, but his silence continued much longer than usual. He was staring down into his hands; when I looked closer, I saw that the object of his attention was a broken length of grooved rubber. I recognized it immediately as a timing belt, larger than the one on my own sewing machine, but functionally identical. It was a crucial part. If it had broken, the rest of the motor was likely in utter shambles. Mr. Waters’ trade had already suffered in the years since the quarantine on Faerie, and I could guess from his expression that he couldn’t afford to have his machine fixed.

As he gazed down at the belt, I watched his usually expressionless face melt into despair. “It’s those confounded new machines,” he said. “Coal powered, you know. Chap who sold it to me said I’d sew seams ten times as fast. Said even my poor arthritic mother could use it painlessly. He was a good salesman, that lad. Paid him a fair portion of what this shop’s worth for the damned thing not a month ago.” He let out one brutal laugh. “Course he was a Nordsken lad, wasn’t he? Long gone now, back to his prairies. Not that I could afford a mechanic anyway, not with what I paid out.”

He squinted up at me through light brown eyes magnified by thick glasses. “I’ll sell you the fabric,” he said gruffly, “but I can’t do much more for you, Miss Lampton.”

I admit that part of my goodwill toward Mr. Waters came from his tendency to call me that: my father’s name, a small reminder of what I had once been. Of course, back when everyone called me Miss Lampton, I’d never had occasion to set a patent-booted foot in his shop. Things were different now.

Mr. Waters was a stickler for class distinctions, and my family’s past wealth kept me above him in his eyes. This was the one aspect of his personality I did not respect, though I had to appreciate it when everyone else insulted and harangued me. Once in a while, he even helped me with my sewing, free of charge and free of Stepmother’s knowledge. I would have helped him even without my pressing need to barter for extra fabric.

And all at once, I knew how I would obtain the extra fabric I needed to attend the Exposition.

“I could repair your sewing machine, Mr. Waters.”

His doubting guffaw caught me off guard. “Oh?” He chuckled, all class distinctions gone for the moment. “And how will you manage that?”

I cleared my throat and, straightening my spine to its full length, I looked Mr. Waters in the eye. “That’s the timing belt,” I explained calmly, reminding myself that he did not yet have any reason to think me capable. “The rubber’s snapped, see? When the belt broke, it would have thrown off the timing of every cog in the motor. I’d say most of them are damaged now, too. A needle or pin, or some such thing, must have broken while you were sewing and flown in between the main pulley and that belt.”

“A pin broke . . . that’s so,” Mr. Waters said quietly. His face had resumed its usual neutral expression, but there was respect, even admiration, in his eyes.

I felt myself starting to smile. “Skill with machines runs in my family, you see.”

“Really?” he said. “I don’t remember your father being much good with moving parts.” His eyes lowered. “He was a good man, don’t misunderstand me. A real good man.”

This touched me so deeply that I wasn’t even tempted to explain—besides, there was a reason Mother had kept her inventions anonymous. Few people thought a woman capable of mechanical brilliance like hers. I could hardly expect Mr. Waters to believe that my mother, not my father, had been the expert mechanic.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Well,” he said briskly, handing me the part, “you can’t do more harm to it, at least, and I’ll thank you for trying.”

Turning the long, ridged bit of metal over in my fingers, I took a deep breath and sent my mother a silent prayer to help me prove myself in this.

Mr. Waters ushered me behind the counter and through a doorway into a back room I had never noticed before. There an old woman sat knitting in a rocking chair, her foot tapping on the floor to keep her chair moving. She lifted her toes and rotated her ankle, and I heard her worn joints grind and click.

Her stitches were tiny, and a length of elegant black lace drifted from her needles down over her lap. The wrinkles around her eyes had molded into permanent squints, and she glowered at her delicate work through thick half-moon spectacles.

“Miss Lampton, meet my mother,” said Mr. Waters. The woman looked up at me, and her eyes brightened.

“Is that Nicolette Lampton?” she asked. “Forgive me, dear, for not standing to greet you. It’s getting hard for me to move around so much.” She held out her hand, and I shook it gladly.

I thought of my mother’s automated rocking chair, and of how easy it would be to design a knitting machine, and my smile widened. I knew now that I would be able to barter my skills and inventions for anything at all I might need.

“Lovely to meet you,” I said, and meant it. “I’m here to fix your son’s sewing machine.”

The woman nodded. “Wonderful! Wonderful.” Her voice faded away as she focused once more on her lacework. Her hands resumed their quick, pained movements.

I turned to Mr. Waters. “Now, where is this troublesome beast?”

He pointed to a corner of the room, where lurked a larger sewing machine than I’d ever seen before. It ran entirely on coal power; there was a small stove under the table, where the pedal would usually be. It would be lovely and warming for the feet, too, I thought, making note for my own designs. A rectangle of red fabric lay strewn over the workspace, scrunched up tight around the huge needle. A deep tangle of thread bloomed like mold between the needle and the motor’s main pulley.

I fingered the broken timing belt in my hand: I could see where it had come off the machine, and the carnage it had left in its wake. I had a wrench in my apron pocket, and I requested a mallet and a file, which Mr. Waters supplied from his button-making and corsetry cabinets. Before I set to work, I handed him the list of fabrics and notions I would need for Piety and Chastity’s new wardrobes.

I lay down on my back so I could look up into the machine. First I examined each cog, filing down any damaged edges. Each moving part on the motor had a small timing mark; I held my breath while I matched them with their twin marks on the engine’s housing. They all needed to align in total precision before I could replace the belt itself.

The one Mr. Waters had shown me, I finally decided, was past repair: the rubber had torn in more than one place, and too many of the grooves would be lost if I melted it back together. Ordering a new belt, from Nordsk no less, would take months that neither Mr. Waters nor I had to spare. But I already knew what to do.

“I’ll be back shortly!” I called, standing up. I hurried into the shop room and out the front door. The bell clanged behind me as I fairly skipped up the road, mallet in hand. I was
good
at this, I knew I was, and I loved doing it, too. This kind of confidence felt strange, like waking up healthy after a long illness. I was grateful for the feeling, both to Mr. Waters and, I realized, to myself.

I found the carriage frame waiting for me at the roadside, and I carefully pried off the two small front wheels. The left tire was brittle from exposure to the sun, and it started to crumble even as I held it; but the right had been shielded by the rest of the carriage frame and was still fairly pliable. It would have to do.

Back in the shop, I used Mr. Waters’ measuring equipment—in this, at least, the tools of his trade and of mine intersected perfectly—to carve meticulous notches into the rubber. I had to adjust the main pulley slightly to accommodate my improvised timing belt, but just as I’d known it would be, the wheel was close to a perfect fit.

Finally I emerged from under the machine. I straightened the fabric over the board and threaded the needle. Trying not to cringe in anticipation, I touched my foot to the pedal.

There were three things that could still go very wrong: the timing marks might be misaligned, so that the machine would fly apart again as soon as it started; I might have carved the grooves into the new belt imprecisely, in spite of Mr. Waters’ measuring tools; or the old rubber might have perished after all, so that it would crumble under the pressure of the motor. I’d learned the hard way, during my years as Mother’s pupil and in my own recent experiments, how irreparable each mistake could be.

I pressed down on the pedal and heard the motor rumble. The fabric danced under my fingers, and the flawless whir and slip-slip of the needle and thread sounded like music. The machine was perfect.

“Mr. Waters!” I called, smiling so broadly it nearly hurt. I had fixed something for someone else, and I was on my way to escaping the Steps and a life that already felt too rusty and small for the new opportunities that lay before me now.