Clockwork Twist : Missing (8 page)

The dining room was one of the most staggeringly beautiful rooms Twist had ever seen. The vaulted ceiling stood high above on columns of pale marble, and crystal and silver chandeliers hung like glittering clouds. Large, round tables were set out on the wide floor, with at least ten chairs placed around each one to encourage the travelers to meet each other. Mountains of perfectly arranged and delicious looking food filled the long tables in the center of the room. As Twist glanced over the offerings, he realized quickly that there was enough variety to suit every possible taste. Myra and Arabel sent him to find an empty table while they dove into the fray of excited diners, armed with empty plates.

Just as he’d imagined, all of the food that Myra had happily gathered for him was exquisite. After the seemingly endless sea of passengers had fairly well devoured the buffet, Twist and his companions decided to take a stroll on the promenade deck, which ringed the ship continuously on the third level. After the noise and commotion of the crowded dining hall, Twist was eager to get into the open air.

He was, however, quite disappointed to discover that the rest of the passengers seemed to have had the same idea. It wasn’t long before the deck was swarming with people. Twist pulled his arms close to himself and kept most of his attention on not bumping into any of the moving bodies around him. Myra, seeing the problem quickly, wrapped one copper arm around his back, trying to shield him as best she could from the crowd.

“Perhaps we should go back inside,” she said to Arabel.

“Oh, excuse me,” said a gentleman in a gray suit after he’d walked into Arabel by accident.

“Yes, now would be good,” Twist muttered, searching for the nearest door through the constantly moving bodies.

“Over here,” Arabel said to Myra as she hurried through a sudden clearing.

The three of them rushed through a doorway and into a narrow hallway of rich cherrywood. Continuing on, they found a large set of gilded double doors slightly ajar. Arabel pushed the doors open to reveal a huge, empty room. The ceiling rose beyond the third deck and into the second, where a set of five enormous crystal chandeliers filled the empty air. A large square of highly polished wood in the center of the floor was surrounded by pillars of the same dark cherrywood as the walls.

“I know what this place is,” Myra said with a wide smile as she let her hands fall away from Twist and hurried into the center of the open floor. “It’s a ballroom! I love ballrooms.”

“It’s so quiet in here,” Twist said softly. His voice echoed slightly off the wood.

“Come, Twist, dance with me!” Myra said, beckoning him closer.

“There’s no music, my dear,” he said, forcing some lightness into his voice in the wake of the stress he’d found outside.

“Oh, who needs music?” Myra said flippantly.

Arabel laughed to herself. “It’s too bad we don’t have one of those new portable music players they make in Austria,” she said wistfully. The image of Jonas listening to his music player—lying on his back in the sunlight, his eyes open to the sky—flashed instantly to Twist’s mind. “They’re lovely,” Arabel went on. “I knew someone who had one, once.” Her smile darkened slightly as she frowned. “Who was that?”

“It was Jonas,” Twist said. “He has one. He loves music.” As he spoke, he felt his excitement rise. If she could catch even the slightest memory of Jonas, then maybe she could regain all of her lost memories.

Arabel’s eyes chilled with disappointment when she looked at Twist. Myra took Twist’s hand and drew his attention, while her unease crept into his Sight despite the smile on her face.

“I’ve never asked you, Twist,” Myra said brightly. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Wait a minute,” Twist said, looking back to Arabel. “Try to remember, Arabel. Who had that music player? What did he look like? Can you remember seeing him?”

“It wasn’t my brother,” she said, her face utterly devoid of mirth now.

An electric jolt of excitement streaked through Twist’s thoughts like a gunshot. “Your brother? How can you be sure it wasn’t your brother?”

“Because I don’t have one,” Arabel said tightly.

Twist’s delicate hopes crashed on the wooden floor at his feet with a ringing silence. He hardly noticed as Myra hissed disapproving words at Arabel. He took his hand back from her and turned away, taking steady breaths to calm himself. While he heard Arabel snap at Myra and Myra’s voice rise defensively, he was too distracted to listen to their words.

Twist’s emotions refused to settle down, which began to worry him. He tried closing his eyes, tried to empty his chaotic thoughts, but his disappointment, frustration, and fear grew like a wildfire in his mind. His thoughts wouldn’t leave Jonas for an instant. He had been through so much since they had met. Every single time Twist had struggled against his own fear, Jonas had been there to help him. Even when Twist had been taken away to Big Ben, the lingering ghost of Jonas’s touch on Twist’s pocket watch had helped to calm him. Twist now wondered if he’d lost the ability to calm himself at all.

He pulled his watch out of his pocket and opened the face. He felt the tiny clockwork tick calmly in his fingers, rippling up into his Sight. Watching the hands tick closer to the next hour, Twist realized distantly that it was still set to London time. They would be crossing into a new time zone once they got past the North Pole. Twist’s eyes moved to the tiny knob on the top of the watch—the winding mechanism that was also used to set the time. As was now the norm between them, Jonas had set Twist's watch last, when they had landed in London.

His mind cleared so suddenly that it stole a breath from him. Twist never set his own watch. He had kept the watch on his person for as long as he could remember, but in his entire life, he had never used it to keep time. He’d never needed to. He’d never cared. His watch had never read the correct time until Jonas had set it for him, way back in Paris. The simple fact that it was now clearly reading the time in London was unshakable proof that Jonas wasn’t a figment of Twist’s imagination. No matter how far away he was, he was real.

“Well, do
you
remember him?” Arabel was asking, her voice razor sharp.

“It’s not my fault if I don’t,” Myra snapped back, just as angry. Twist turned to find them facing each other with stern expressions.

“You’re not helping Twist by buying into this fantasy,” Arabel said darkly. “You’re only making him worse!”

“It’s my job to care for him, not yours!”

“Oh, so I’m not allowed to care about him at all?”

“If you can’t believe in him, then he doesn’t need you.”

“You don’t understand anything, Myra. Even after all these years, you’re still just a little girl! Can’t you see that he’s lost his mind?”

“Oh!” Myra screamed in rage, clenching her fists. “How dare you! Take that back!” A gust of cold air prowled through the room like a predator.

“Please! Calm down, both of you!” Twist gasped, moving closer.

“Shut up!” Arabel snapped at him.

“Don’t tell my Twist to shut up!”

Twist’s breath billowed out of his mouth as a silver cloud.

“Myra, dear,” Twist said as gently as he could, reaching for her. The instant his fingers brushed her metal skin, his Sight burned with her rage, and he drew his hand back with a hiss of pain that neither of them seemed to notice.

“I’ll say whatever I want, thank you very much,” Arabel hissed.

“You’re a beast of a woman!” Myra snapped back. “I hate you!”

Twist heard the chandeliers above ring lightly as if shaken by an unseen hand.

“Oh yes, very mature,” Arabel sneered.

Twist stared at them both in fright while Myra seethed. The thought of getting close enough to touch either one of them, of what those molten emotions could do to his already-wounded Sight, made him take a step away. Myra’s anger had always given her spirit more ghostly abilities, and it was only a matter of time before things might begin to turn violent. Just being near them was almost too much to bear. As Myra began another verbal assault and Arabel readied her defense and counterattack, Twist turned and walked back through the door they had come in. He heard them continue to argue as he moved farther down the hallway, neither one aware that he’d left.

Outside on the promenade deck, the crowds had thinned. Many people were now lounging in the deck chairs, sipping cocktails and coffees. Twist passed by, his mind a jumbled mess of emotions and thoughts that didn’t fit together in any reasonable way. As his steps quickened, desperate to find peace somewhere else, he eventually found himself at the bow of the ship. His hurried thoughts slammed into silence as he stopped walking. There was no one else on this part of the deck. The balloon above cast a cool shadow over one side of the ship, but offered no protection here.

He felt the sunlight beat on his back and the sharp chill of the air off the bow sting at his face. He took off his jacket, leaving it resting on the railing before him, and loosened the buttons at the collar of his shirt, letting the cold air pour over his skin. The wind tossed his black curls about and tugged at the edges of his shirt. He closed his eyes and leaned heavily on the steel railing. As he took a slow, deep breath, he opened his still-aching Sight gently to the indistinct blur of the wind itself: wild, free, emotionless, and empty.

His Sight complained against the chill force of the wind, but the pain wasn’t too strong to have to push away. He held still and willed his emotions to quiet with the full strength of his soul. It was a very long moment before he opened his eyes again. When he did, he saw a glistening, dark-blue sea stretching out below the giant, fluffy, scattered white clouds. He imagined they must be well north of Scotland by now. Soon, the sun would fall below the horizon and leave them in darkness for whole days as they passed over the pole. Twist savored the heat on his back, knowing it wouldn’t last much longer.

When Myra and Arabel found Twist again, what felt like hours later, they both wore sheepish expressions. Neither spoke of their fight in the empty ballroom, but they were both distinctly kind to Twist for the rest of the day. He didn’t speak of it either, hoping instead that they might be able to truly forgive and forget. When he took Myra’s hand and found shame wandering at the edges of her softer emotions, he would have given anything to erase the feeling from her heart. Slowly, as he diligently repaid her kindness, it faded away on its own.

Days passed on the cruise liner while the sun struggled to rise in the sky. Every day grew steadily shorter and dimmer, until it seemed that whole days were the perpetual golden color of sunrise and sunset. Myra was delighted by this phenomenon and insisted on daily strolls out on the promenade deck. The constant crowds, however, were anything but delightful to Twist.

He distracted himself with Myra as much as he could. Making her smile or laugh always brought light back into his world, no matter how dark the sky grew around them. Even as he tried to ignore it, his resistance to the crowds was straining. After a while, he began to feel flashes of fear every time he had to enter the teeming dining hall.

“Are you coming?” Myra asked, walking through the door of Twist’s cabin. Arabel stood waiting in the hallway, but Twist was sitting on the end of his bed, his arms crossed.

“No,” he answered, not looking at Myra.

“But it’s lunch time,” she said innocently.

“I just ate two hours ago!” Twist said, throwing his hands in the air. “All I’ve done since we got on this blasted ship is wade through thick crowds of people and eat. I can’t take it anymore. I’m not going.”

Myra stared at him for a moment. “You’ll get hungry if you don’t eat lunch,” she said experimentally.

“I doubt it,” he said darkly. “I’ve already eaten enough for a lifetime. And that was just this morning. Besides, there will be another bloody meal in another few hours.”

“That’s only afternoon tea,” Myra pointed out.

“With enough finger sandwiches and crumpets and scones and jam and beans on toast and pigs in blankets to feed a Roman legion for a month,” Twist answered instantly.

“Myra, just leave him,” Arabel said. “You know what he’s like when he’s cross. You can feed me, if you like.” Twist and Myra both gave her a suspicious look. “Well, whatever,” Arabel said, shaking her head. “I’ll meet you there, if you come,” she said to Twist before she moved to leave.

Myra looked to Twist with a slight pout on her metal lips.

“It’s been three days, and I still have four more to endure,” he said as gently as he could without losing his firm tone. “I simply need a break. I usually adore monotony, in general. But this is too much.”

“So, you’re just going to sit here?”

“Yes. It’s empty. I’m going sit right here and wait for the rest of the passengers to go to the buffet, while I catch a moment’s peace.”

Myra gave a sigh.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” Twist said, getting to his feet to lay his hands on her still-crossed arms. “There are just too many people. I’ll go and eat with you again later, but right now I simply need a rest. This trip is very tiring without Jonas. He always keeps me steady.”

“Right,” Myra said softly, nodding. “I just wish that
I
knew how to steady you.”

Her words stung him so quickly that he flinched against the sensation. “You help immensely,” Twist said. “You make me so very happy.” She looked up to him hopefully. “I just need a little silence right now, that’s all,” he added. She nodded, looking down again. “There’s no reason to be sad,” Twist said, lifting her chin with a gentle finger. “And no reason for you not to have a good time. You should go with Arabel.”

“And do what?” Myra asked, frowning. “I can’t eat anything.”

“You can tell her all about how much I’m annoying you,” Twist said with a smile. “I know she’d like to talk about how troublesome I can be. I’m sure you two will both have a nice time.”

“Maybe…” Myra said, smiling softly. “Well,” she said on a heavy breath, “I suppose, if you change your mind, you know where we’ll be.”

“Thank you, my love,” Twist said, smiling with relief. Myra sighed and shook her head, but her smile didn’t fade as she left him.

True to his word, Twist waited until he could no longer hear people walking by out in the hall. But then he grew swiftly restless. He crept out of his cabin and turned to walk toward the back of the ship. The silence of the empty hallways, lined with innumerable doors on both sides, did little to quiet the uneasy tremors in his nerves that never seemed to stop.

He hadn’t had another dream about Jonas since the first, no matter how he’d tried to find the buzz in his neck again. Every time he thought of reaching for the sensation, fear now kept him from pushing hard enough to make it hurt. And once the sun was gone, there would be one less comfort on this ship for him.

He didn’t notice that he’d run out of hallway until he came to a door at the very back of the ship. The door was clearly printed with the words “
Crew only—do not enter
” in four different languages, but it was propped slightly ajar with a metal toolbox. A quick glance around the intersection proved that he was totally alone. As he stared at the door, a new sound came to him in the silence of the empty hallway and nearby rooms. Deep, growling, pumping. Metal and fire. The door led straight into part of the engine room.

Curiosity brought Twist’s eyes to the gap by the slightly open door. There didn’t seem to be anyone on the other side, but the scent of coal, oil, and hot metal wafted to him alluringly. If he could lay a hand on some part of the machine, the sheer power of it might just clear the unease from his mind. Steam engines usually had a temper, but they were never confused and never lost. Twist gently pulled the door open just a little more and slipped inside.

There were no workers around him, but he felt anything but alone. He was surrounded on all sides by pipes, gears, gauges, bellows, and tools strewn about as if forgotten. He could hear the low, deep growl of the boilers farther ahead, and could see thin metal walkways that meandered between the larger pieces of the machine and climbed up above pistons and a labyrinth of thick pipes. Twist had seen engine rooms before, but never anything this massive or complex.

He stepped gingerly up a short flight of steps, careful not to let his feet make too much noise, and started along a metal walkway that led farther inside. He reached out as he walked, letting his fingertips fall lightly over the edges of the machine. Confidence and strength glistened at the edges of his mind, promising far more within. The walkway split, one way leading up another, higher set of stairs, and another leading down. Hot, coal-soaked air wafted up from below. A quick glance showed a deep trough of furnaces—four on each side of a valley of thick metal—manned by quite-large, black-stained men. Twist crept silently up to higher ground to hide himself in the rafters of the machine.

Only a few more steps on, past some steam-venting valves, brought him to the very stern of the ship. To his surprise, vast, tall, sheets of clear glass filled his vision. An arc of metal walkway hung at the edge of the glass, stretching from one side of the ship to the other. Beyond the glass, the constant sunset on the edge of the Arctic Circle gilded the sky, while the giant propellers that drove the ship spun just below the edge of the glass. Twist walked up to the windows and pressed his hands against the cool glass, looking down on endless ice fields that were just beginning to reach out beneath the ship. The end of the engines hung in space before him as well, maybe fifty feet below, glinting in the golden light.

The height of the view caught up with him suddenly, and Twist brought his vision up quickly, staring out over the top of the Atlantic Ocean instead. Even though it was midday, the stars were beginning to glint in the rusty sky. By tomorrow, no one on this ship would see the sun again until it crossed the pole and began its descent down toward Japan. For a moment, Twist wondered if Jonas could see the sun right now from his impossible bubble of glass, hanging out there in those stars.

The sound of a voice drifted to Twist through the constant rumble and noise of the engine. He looked quickly for the source, fully aware that he had wandered totally out into the open and now had nowhere to hide. A young man was standing at the glass window, very far away to his right, in the shadows. The boy was speaking quietly, his voice only reaching Twist indistinctly in the tiny pauses between engine growls. Even from this distance, Twist could see that his clothes looked far too fashionable and clean for him to be an engineer.

The boy turned in midsentence and stopped instantly, his gaze falling on Twist. There was something in his hand that gave off a bright, blue light—connected to a long, thin chain that hung around his neck—that illuminated his face. It was only in the strange blue light that Twist realized that it wasn’t a boy, but Skye. She stopped instantly, staring back at Twist, muttered one last thing, and then snapped the glowing thing closed like a locket and let it fall to hang around her neck by the chain. A few quick steps brought her somewhat closer.

“This way!” she yelled, somehow whispering at the same time, and waving Twist closer. She was glancing down into the engine below nervously.

Twist followed her glance and saw people walking around below in the rest of the engine room. A shiver of fright ran up his spine. If they simply looked up…he hurried to join her at the other end of the walkway and found that a series of large pipes obscured this section of the windows from below.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked her quietly as he reached the shadows.

“What are
you
doing in here?” she shot back instantly, her hand on her hip.

Now that he could see her properly, Twist couldn’t understand how he’d ever mistaken her for a boy. The tight, chocolate-brown trousers she wore clung to her form pleasantly, as did the tall, black boots with heels high enough to give her a clear two inches of extra height and making her now just a bit taller than him. The loose, white men’s shirt was only buttoned over her middle—leaving the warm, sun-browned skin at her throat open to the air—and hung like a skirt past her hips, under the bright-red waistcoat that wrapped her middle like a flat bodice. The small, circular brass locket hung low, over her heart.

“What is that?” Twist asked, nodding to the locket.

She put on a surprised expression. “Oh, I’m sorry? What ever do you mean?” she asked, innocent as an alley cat.

“Fine, have your secrets,” Twist said back, narrowing his eyes at her. Unexpectedly, she laughed—a soft, bubbling sound—her eyes glittering in the low light.

“Would you feel better if I told you it’s a super special spy gadget?” she asked him playfully.

“Perhaps,” he toned, slowly picking her words apart in his head until he found sense hiding among them. “Is it?”

“Kind of,” she answered, nodding with a thoughtful expression. “Oh! I want to try something,” she said suddenly. She then smiled at him and held out her hand. “Here, take my hand.”

Twist’s heartbeat sped up sharply, and he edged away from her a step. “No, thank you,” he muttered softly, holding his own hands behind his back.

Skye’s fine, reddish eyebrow rose suspiciously, and she examined her own hand before looking back to him questioningly. “You didn’t shake my hand when we met, either.”

“I don’t touch people,” he said. “Believe me, it’s nothing personal.”

“I see…” she said, still suspicious. “So that’s why you’re hanging about in the engine room. Don’t like crowds, do you?”

“Something like that,” Twist said, quickly translating her flippant American phrases into proper English in his head.

“Boy, do I know that feeling,” Skye said with a sigh, turning to hold the thin railing at the window with both hands as she looked out at the view. “Is it just me, or does it seem like all we ever do on this stinking ship is eat?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever have to eat again.”

“I know, right?” she said, flashing him a smile. “I mean, look. I’m getting fat!” she added, patting her stomach.

“If you say so,” Twist said, unable to find anything amiss with her slender waist. Her form reminded him quite a lot of Myra’s. “I don’t see a problem,” he said lightly.