Steampunk Fairy Tales (6 page)

The clock ticked much louder at the top of
the tower. He stepped off the stairs and saw the darkened village
through the face of the clock, covering everything in an amber
film. On the floor lay scattered pieces of metal and wires. Two
miniature bronze boxes sat in the center with large knobs and rusty
silver claws attached. A thin wire linked them.

Hunched over those boxes sat the girl he’d
come to rescue.

Golden strands of hair fell down around her
ears and the rest was haphazardly tied back. Her red dress was
covered in dirt and dust, but she didn’t seem to care, gazing down
at her contraption with every bit of concentration.

“
Hello?” Oliver asked, and
the girl’s head shot up. Her mouth dropped open.

“
Stop! Don’t move!” she
shouted, holding out her hand. Oliver paused mid-step.

“
Who are you?” she asked.
“What are you doing here?”

“
I’m the rescue party, of
course.”

She scrutinized him with narrowed eyes.
Oliver raised his foot but the girl held up both hands.

“
I said stop moving! You
need to be careful!”

He glanced at the floor. A green line ran
across the lenses of the goggles, directing his safe passage, but
Oliver didn’t know what the girl was capable of, so he remained
still.

Anger and curiosity flitted across her face.
“You look odd, like an automaton. Take off those glasses so I can
see you.”

The room darkened significantly as he pulled
the goggles off, and he noticed a small bout of light from the
girl’s lantern on the floor.

“
You’re practically
working in the dark!”

She tilted her head. “My father would have
never sent a grimy boy like you. What’s your name?”

“
Oliver. You?”

“
Aileen.” She rose from
her spot. Specks of dirt hung in the air as she tiptoed forward to
give him a better look. “Aileen Codges. How’d you find the
entrance?”

“
A bit of luck and some
magic.”

She scoffed. “Luck sounds about right.”

For just a moment, Oliver considered walking
out the door. His own eyes narrowed. “Everyone in town is worried
about you.”

“
I don’t need saving.” She
crossed her arms. “I could have easily made my way downstairs. I
hid the entryway on purpose.”

“
You hid it?
Why?”

“
It doesn’t matter.” She
waved her arms. “You can go back and tell everyone I’m perfectly
fine. They don’t need to worry.”

His eyes lingered over her project. As crude
as it was, he wanted badly to know what it was. “What are you doing
up here?”

“Saving the town. Stopping the monsters.” A
spark shot from the metal box, causing Aileen to cry and wince.
“Darn it!”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “It looks like you
may need help.”

“
I’m perfectly fine.
Please go back now. Step lightly.”

He held out his goggles, and Aileen paused.
“I know an unfinished project when I see one, and according to what
I’ve heard, you’ve already been here two days. The goggles can help
you finish it.”

She hesitated, biting her lip, but Oliver
felt her resolve cracking. “Why should I trust you?”

“
Why wouldn’t you trust
your rescue party?” Then he added, more seriously, “A boy was hurt.
I want to help stop them before it gets out of hand.”

She leaned over and grabbed his goggles,
placing them over her own eyes, the strap bunching up her hair and
the lenses giving her an alien look. As soon as they were on, the
gears in the glasses hummed, puffing out more smoke. Her mouth
opened in awe, and she looked around.

“
These are magnificent!
Where did you find them?” All the menace in her voice had vanished.
A smile lit her dirty face.

“
They’re mine.”

She plopped herself on the wooden floor—her
dress sending even more dust into the air—and grabbed one of the
metal boxes along with a small wrench. “Those beasts outside the
village. They’re on a timer if you haven’t noticed. Midnight is
when they’ll arrive for an hour doing who knows what. There has to
be a way to stop them, and I believe I can make their internal
clock stop.”

“
And how do you plan on
doing that?”

“
By short-circuiting
them.” Her fingers moved quickly, threading wires and screwing
bolts into place. She held up one of her bronze boxes. “I’ve
created this with the things I’ve found. We’ll have to connect it
to the monsters, unfortunately, but once that’s done it’ll shut
them down. These goggles will help me finish it in no
time.”

“
You’re quite good,”
Oliver said, watching with interest. “Doing all of that on your
own.”

Aileen shrugged. “Thanks. Although I doubt
I’m as great as the person who owned these goggles. They must have
invented some marvelous things.”

The rumbling from outside grew louder and
she paused. Oliver kneeled in the doorway and watched. Aileen
worked diligently, only stopping to switch tools.

“
So where did you steal
these?” she asked, tapping the lens. “You couldn’t have made them.
In fact, I don’t think anyone could have. They’re too
perfect.”

“
I didn’t steal them,” he
muttered. “I borrowed them.”

Aileen’s mouth formed a thin line. “Sounds
like stealing to me.”

He frowned and was about to reply when the
clock struck twelve. The building shook, consuming every other
sound.

“
Oh no.”

He glanced at the window. A shadow passed
and a darkened creature rushed down in the moonlight. Terror built
in his chest.

“
We’re out of
time.”

Aileen’s goggled eyes looked down as she
twisted a screw into her box. “I have to finish this.”

“
We have to go. If it hits
the tower—”

“
But I’m not
finished!”

“
Finish it on the way
down.”

He rushed forward and grabbed Aileen,
pulling her up. They ran. Aileen led them out and down the stairs,
Oliver following blindly until they reached his stack of crates.
The lantern he’d left behind illuminated the ground as they climbed
down.

When the final chime struck, they tumbled
out the door. The winged creature made its final attack on the
building, diving into the tower like a torpedo. Seconds later the
tower smashed into the woods with a loud crash, taking trees down
like a line of dominoes.

The creature rose again and circled above.
Then it dived. Oliver pulled Aileen and himself out of the way, and
they tumbled into the grass. Aileen toyed with the screw and the
boxes in her hand, her head still bent down.

“
Aileen, we have to go!”
Oliver cried in between breaths. He grabbed her arm and tried to
wrench her away but she refused to move.

“
It’s finished!” She held
up her device. “We need to attach it to its back!”

They looked up just in time to see the
creature. Aileen waited patiently, staring it down. It lunged
again, missing her by inches, and she threw her device.

They heard a loud thump as metal claws
pierced the beast. Cheering, Aileen pressed down on the button of
the box she still held. Electricity surged through her device,
through the wires and into the claws attached to the beast. The
machine’s gears halted. The beast juddered and hit the ground with
a large thud.

A grin spread across Aileen’s face as she
tore the goggles off and jumped up. “We did it! These goggles are
brilliant!”

Oliver raced over to the machine, falling
beside it. He seized bits of bronze and iron sheets covering the
creature and pulled at them. Aileen kneeled beside him to help,
unscrewing bolts with her wrench. She pulled at a wing and fell
back with a start as the piece she tore off revealed a human
hand.

“
Is that—” Aileen began,
eyes wide as she leaned back.

“
He’s my
brother.”

They disassembled the beast until only his
brother remained, his eyes closed and skin pale. Oliver felt his
breath on his hand and sighed in relief.

“
How did this happen?”
Aileen asked, observing Oliver’s brother and the scattered pieces
in astonishment. She gritted her teeth.

“
My mother … she used
those goggles to invent the creatures.” He gazed down and closed
his eyes. “She did this.”

“
Why would she do
something like this? To her own sons?”

Oliver shoulders sagged. “She was afraid.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I should have done something or
told someone about them.”

Aileen stepped closer. She held out her hand
and smiled at him, warming his heart. “It’s okay, Oliver. We
stopped them in time.”

The trees rustled, and they both looked up.
Two amber globes burned before them in the darkened woods.

“
We only stopped one,” he
said, slowly rising. “The other one. It’s here.”

Aileen took his hand and squeezed it. Her
gaze was steely. “Let’s stop this one too.” She handed Oliver the
goggles and her own device. “It’s all yours.”

He placed the goggles over his eyes. The fog
cleared, and the lenses told him what he needed to do.

Aileen moved the unconscious boy out of the
way as the second creature stumbled out of the woods on its thick
legs. Its bronze nails dug into the muddy ground. Steam rolled out
of an iron snout with every husky breath it took, and it stared
Oliver down with blazing eyes.

He waited as instructed. The large creature
pounded closer. Then it charged. He chucked the wired device at the
creature and ducked out of its path. To his surprise, the metal
connected with a clink, and the claws pierced the beast. He pressed
the switch. The machine halted in its tracks, smacking the
junk-covered ground with a great crash, spurting up even more dirt
and spare parts. Smoke flowed from its engine as the gears cooled
down.

Like the first, Oliver and Aileen tore it to
pieces until nothing remained except a pile of junk and his other
brother, unconscious and thin, yet unharmed.

When they finally finished, their hands and
faces were covered in grease and dirt. Aileen wiped her forehead
with the back of her hand. Oliver smiled in relief. A quiet night
had settled around them and Oliver recognized the sound of the
clock tower, still ticking even though it had crashed.

Pulling off the goggles, he held them out
for Aileen to take. “For you. And everything you did.”

She shook her head, grinning. “They’re
yours, Oliver. You keep them. Besides, I think you’ll need
them.”

His brothers awoke and Oliver told them what
happened, and who saved them. The town spoke about the beasts for
weeks, but there was no mention of Aileen Codges, the miller’s
daughter, who disappeared into the background just like the fallen
clock tower.

Town saved and chaos averted, Oliver had one
last thing to do.

###

When the bell rang and the inventor opened
her door, her three sons stood before her. She looked at them from
within her cottage, where her inventions had remained untouched.
Revulsion filled her eyes. Oliver and his brothers knew there was
no love remaining in their mother’s heart; something evil had taken
root there.

Her eyes locked on the goggles resting on
Oliver’s head. She lunged at him, shouting, but his brothers held
her back. Oliver clutched Aileen’s shiny new device, then tossed it
into her home. Wires sprung out of the device and clawed ends
connected to the metal husks in every room. He pressed his switch,
and the inventions it had attached to fizzed to life, sparking and
whirring until they sputtered out and became nothing but junk.

Inventions destroyed, his mother raced over
to them, her screams echoing through her home and her curses
hanging in the air. “Monsters,” she muttered, over and over again.
“Taking my goggles. Stealing my work like I knew you would! Just
like everyone else!”

His brothers moved to confront her, but
Oliver held them back. “Let’s go. The town folk can deal with her.”
He glanced across the dusty room, a thin smile cresting his face.
He tapped the lens of the goggles. “Besides, she’s harmless
now.”

The brothers left, hearts weighing greatly
in their chests. But they were alive, and they were safe, and
Oliver knew that was all that mattered. He gripped Aileen’s device
in his hand, set the goggles over his eyes, and let them light the
way

.

Strawberry Sins

Heather White

H
e gingerly held the flask up to the light. The chartreuse
liquid inside bubbled and smoked, the caustic scent burning his
nostrils, but the solution appeared stable. He breathed in hard to
ease the tightness of his chest. Had he done it?

He tapped the glass with a clawed nail. Too
hard. The liquid sloshed up the side and flashed, settling back
down in a gooey brown mess.

He roared and flung the flask across the
room. It shattered on the other side of his lab, a brown smear
slipping down the wall. Slumping into his seat, he buried his face
in his paws. Was this what he was reduced to? He, Dr. Samuel Wolfe,
the man who had brought the Parisian army to its knees with his
Cold Induced Temporal Arrestor.

The notes made no sense,
even the parts that weren’t encoded!
How
had Fermin changed the formula?
Wolfe’s half of the serum had been right. Obviously, given his
current form. Step one to an indomitable force, to the super
soldier. But Fermin’s part! The control! It was warped. And Wolfe’s
mind! His mind was … was …