Realms 2: The Second Year of Clarkesworld (Clarkesworld Anthology) Read online

  “You did? You stole from the boy?” Sparrow clicked his wings shut. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “You may not, today,” Chickadee said. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  She cocked her head to look away from him and to the corner where the live mouse now hid. The mouse put his forepaw on the silver marble and rolled it away from the potted fern. Chickadee felt the tension in her spring and tried to calculate how many revolutions of movement it still offered her. She thought it would suffice.

  “Where is the missing wind-up key?” Sparrow hung from his line, waiting for the boy to wind him again.

  “The live mouse has it.” Chickadee hopped forward and pecked at another invisible crumb, but did not waste the movement needed to look at Sparrow.

  “What would a live mouse need with a windup key?”

  “He does not need it,” said Chickadee. “But I do have need of it and he is in my service.”

  All the gears in the room stopped for a moment as the other clockwork animals paused to listen. Even the nightingale stopped her song. In the sudden cessation of ticking, sound from the greater world outside crept in, bringing the babble of the fountain in the courtyard, the laughter of the boy, the purr of automobiles and from the far distance, the faint pealing of a clock.

  “I suppose you would have us believe that he winds you?” said Sparrow.

  “Not yet. Perhaps today.” She continued pecking the floor.

  After a moment of nothing happening, the other animals returned to their tasks save for the sparrow. He hung from his line and beat his wings against his side.

  “Ha! I see him. I see the live mouse behind the potted fern. You could too if you could fly.”

  “I have no need.” Chickadee felt her clockwork beginning to slow. “Live Mouse!” she called. “It is time to fulfill our bargain.”

  The silence came again as the other animals stopped to listen. Into this quiet came a peculiar scraping rattle and then the live mouse emerged from behind the potted fern with the missing wind-up key tied in his tail.

  “What is he doing?” Sparrow squawked.

  Chickadee bent to peck the ground so slowly she thought she might never touch it. A gear clicked forward and she tapped the floor. “Do you really need me to tell you that?”

  Above her, Sparrow dangled on his line. “Live Mouse! Whatever she has promised you, I can give you also, only wind my flying mechanism.”

  The live mouse twirled his whiskers and kept walking toward Chickadee. “Well now. That’s a real interesting proposition. How about a silver marble?”

  “There is one behind the potted fern.”

  “Not nomore.”

  “Then a crystal from the chandelier.”

  The live mouse wrinkled his nose. “If’n I can climb the chandelier to wind ya, then I reckon I can reach a crystal for myself.”

  “I must have something you want.”

  With the key paused by Chickadee’s side, the live mouse said, “That might be so.”

  The live mouse set the tip of the key down like a cane and folded his paws over it. Settling back on his haunches, he tipped his head up to study Sparrow. “How ‘bout, you give me one of your wings?”

  Sparrow squawked.

  “You ain’t got no need of ‘em to fly, that right?” The live mouse looked down and idly twisted the key on the floor, as if he were winding the room. “Probly make you spin round faster, like one of them zeppelin thingamabobs. Whazzat called? Air-o-dye-namic.”

  “A bird cannot fly without wings.”

  “Now you and I both know that ain’t so. A live bird can’t fly without wings, but you’re a clockwork bird.”

  “What would a live mouse know about clockworks?”

  The live mouse laughed. “Ain’t you never heard of Hickory, Dickory and Dock? We mice have a long history with clockworks. Looking at you, I figure you won’t miss a wing none and without it dragging, you ought to be able to go faster and your windings would last you longer. Whaddya say? Wouldn’t it be a mite sight nicer to fly without having to wait for the boy to come back?”

  “What would you do with my wing?”

  “That,” the live mouse smiled, showing his sharp incisors, “is between me and Messrs DeCola and Wodzinski. So do we have a deal?”

  “I will have to consider the matter.”

  “Suit yourself.” The live mouse lifted the key and put the tip in Chickadee’s winding mechanism.

  “Wait!” Sparrow flicked his wings as if anxious to be rid of them. “Yes, yes you may have my left wing, only wind me now. A bird is meant to fly.”

  “All righty, then.”

  Chickadee turned her head with painful slowness. “Now, Live Mouse, you and I have an agreement.”

  “That we did and we do, but nothing in it says I can’t have another master.”

  “That may well be, but the wind-up key belongs to me.”

  “I reckon that’s true. Sorry, Sparrow. Looks as if I can’t help you none.” The live mouse sighed. “And I surely did want me one of them wings.”

  Once again, he lifted the key to Chickadee’s side. Above them, Sparrow let out a squeal of metal. “Wait! Chickadee, there must be something I can offer you. You are going on a journey, yes? From here, I can tell you if any dangers lie on your route.”

  “Only in this room and we are leaving it.”

  “Leaving? And taking the key with you?”

  “Just so. Do not worry. The boy will come to wind you eventually. And now, Live Mouse, if you would be so kind.”

  “My other wing! You may have my other wing, only let the live mouse use the key to wind me.”

  Chickadee paused, waiting for her gears to click forward so that she could look at the Sparrow. Her spring was so loose now, that each action took an eternity. “What would I do with one of your wings? I have two of my own.”

  The other clockwork bird seemed baffled and hung on the end of the line flapping his wings as if he could fling them off.

  The live mouse scraped a claw across the edge of the key. “It might come in real handy on our trip. Supposing Messrs DeCola and Wodzinski want a higher payment than you’re thinking they do. Why then you’d have something more to offer them.”

  “And if they didn’t then we would have carried the wing with us for no reason.”

  “Now as to that,” said the live mouse, “I can promise you that I’ll take it off your hands if’n we don’t need it.”

  Chickadee laughed. “Oh, Live Mouse, I see now. Very well, I will accept Sparrow’s wing so that later you may have a full set. Messrs DeCola and Wodzinski will be happy to have two customers, I am certain.”

  The live mouse bowed to her and wrapped the key in his tail again. “Sparrow, I’ll be right up.” Scampering across the floor, he disappeared into the wall.

  Chickadee did not watch him go, she waited with her gaze still cocked upward toward Sparrow. With the live mouse gone, Chickadee became aware of how still the other clockworks were, watching their drama. Into the silence, Nightingale began to cautiously sing. Her beautiful warbles and chirps repeated through their song thrice before the live mouse appeared out of the ceiling on the chandelier’s chain. The crystals of the chandelier tinkled in a wild accompaniment to the ordered song of the nightingale.

  The live mouse shimmied down the layers of crystals until he reached Sparrow’s flying mechanism. Crawling over that, he wrapped his paws around the string beneath it and slid down to sit on Sparrow’s back.

  “First one’s for me.” His sharp incisors flashed in the chandelier’s light as he pried the tin loops up from the left wing. Tumbling free, it half fell, half floated to rattle against the floor below. “And now this is for the chickadee.”

  Again, his incisors pulled the tin free and let the second wing drop.

  Sparrow’s clockwork whirred audibly inside his body, with nothing to power. “I feel so light!”

  “Told ya so.” The live mouse reached up and took the string in his paws.
Hauling himself back up the line, he reached the flying mechanism in no time at all. “Ready now?”

  “Yes! Oh yes, wind me! Wind me!”

  Lickety-split, the key sank into the winding mechanism and the live mouse began turning it. The sweet familiar sound of a spring ratcheting tighter floated down from above, filling the room. The other clockwork animals crept closer; even Chickadee felt the longing brought on by the sound of winding.

  When the live mouse stopped, Sparrow said, “No, no, I am not wound nearly tight enough yet.”

  The live mouse braced himself with his tail around an arm of the chandelier and grunted as he turn the key again. And again. And again. “Enough?”

  “Tighter.”

  He kept winding.

  “Enough?”

  “Tighter. The boy never winds me fully.”

  “All right.” The mouse turned the key three more times and stopped. “That’s it. Key won’t turn no more.”

  A strange vibration ran through the sparrow’s body. It took Chickadee a moment to realize that he was trying to beat his wings with anticipation. “Then watch me fly.”

  The live mouse pulled the key out of the flying mechanism and hopped up onto the chandelier. As he did, Sparrow swung into action. The flying mechanism whipped him forward and he shrieked with glee. His body was a blur against the ceiling. The chandelier trembled, then shook, then rattled as he spun faster than Chickadee had ever seen him.

  “Live Mouse, you were rig—” With a snap, his flying mechanism broke free of the chandelier. “I’m flying!” Sparrow cried as he hurtled across the room. His body crashed into the window, shattering a pane as he flew through it.

  The nightingale stopped her song in shock. Outside, the boy shrieked and his familiar footsteps hurried under the window. “Oh pooh. The clockwork sparrow is broken.”

  The mother’s voice said, “Leave it alone. There’s glass everywhere.”

  Overhead, the live mouse looked down and winked.

  Chickadee pecked the ground, with her mechanism wound properly. The live mouse appeared at her side. “Thanks for the wings.”

  “I trust they are satisfactory payment?”

  “Sure enough. They look real pretty hanging on my wall.” He squinted at her. “So that’s it? You’re just going to keep on pecking the ground?”

  “As long as you keep winding me.”

  “Yeah. It’s funny, no one else wants my services.”

  “A pity.”

  “Got a question for you though. Will you tell me how to get to Messrs DeCola and Wodzinski?”

  “Why ever for?”

  “Well, I thought . . . I thought maybe Messrs DeCola and Wodzinski really could, I dunno, fix ‘em on me so as I can fly.”

  Chickadee rapped the ground with laughter. “No, Mouse, they cannot. We are all bound to our integral mechanisms.” She cocked her head at him. “You are a live mouse. I am a clockwork chickadee, and Messrs DeCola and Wodzinski are nothing more than names on a scrap of paper glued to the bottom of a table.”

  Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer who moonlights as a writer. She has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures and founded Other Hand Productions. Her design work has garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve.

  Mrs. Kowal’s short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Cosmos and Cicada. She is the art director of Weird Tales and a graduate of Orson Scott Card’s Literary BootCamp.

  FLIGHT

  Jeremiah Sturgill

  Brow lift. Neck lift. Face lift.

  Blepharoplasty—not familiar with the term? Pretend I said eyelid surgery. To make them slant to the outside, that’s all; the exotic look is in. Trust us. You’ll love it. Rhinoplasty—a nose job, that’s all. Not just a reshaping, mind you, but a reimagining. First, we’ll add that beautiful upward tilt (yes, like hers—and hers—and hers), then we’ll reduce the size and narrow the bridge. You may need to breathe through your mouth afterwards, but once we cap your teeth, you’ll thank us for it.

  Next is cosmetic otoplasty—that’s for your ears—followed by collagen injections in your lips and cheeks. Removal of your second chin, and the insertion of an implant to help shape the first one. Permanent laser hair removal below your lower lip, above your upper lip, and for your sideburns too (I can’t believe you have sideburns!). We may as well take off your eyebrows while we are at it. You can draw them on in the future, if you want to go retro. Or schedule a follow-up for replacements, if they come back in style.

  Liposuction’s next, then abdominoplasty (just another word for tummy tuck, girl, no need to worry). After that, we’ll staple your stomach, reshape your buttocks, and make sure your love handles are all-the-way gone—nip and tuck and all that nonsense. You get the idea.

  Of course, there’s still the grand finale, the one no woman would be complete without: breast augmentation. Enlargement and reshaping in your case. In most cases, actually, but that’s not important. All you have to do is show up. We mail you the bill.

  The last day comes and it’s done—you’re done, it’s all downhill from there. Just a few months of rehabilitation, followed by a simple maintenance routine. A chemical peel treatment and derm abrasion therapy every now and then for your complexion, along with the daily, oil-free, skin-exfoliating face wash. And that Hollywood all-liquid seven-day miracle diet? Why not. Couldn’t hurt. Fen-Phen and caffeine pills? Sure. If anything goes wrong, you can always file a lawsuit.

  All right. You’ve been faithful. You’ve done everything you needed to do, and it has worked. You can hardly believe that beautiful woman in the mirror is you.

  Catching your breath in the doctor’s office, you don’t even mind the wait. It feels good just to sit still. Well, not still. Your foot keeps twitching, and you can’t seem to make it stop. But why would you want to? It’s good to keep moving. Helps burn those calories.

  They call your name and you walk into the examination room and sit down again. Your foot keeps up its hypnotic spasming, and everything looks like it’s underwater. He comes out, the doctor does, and you lift up your shirt. He pinches you with cold metal on your stomach, your back, your thighs.

  “Abigail, I’m sorry,” he says, and you can see it in his eyes: the news is bad. “Your body-fat index is point-oh-six.” He looks like he wants to cry.

  You can’t help yourself. You cry. You deserve to feel bad, tubby. Fatso. Whale. Blimp. Pig. Point-oh-six? How could you have been so weak? Too many calories, that’s the problem. You stumble on your way out of the office, ignoring the secretary when she calls out your name. You decide then and there that something’s going to have to give, and isn’t going to be you. You cut you intake in half—three hundred calories a day is more than enough. Decadent, even. You’ve worked too hard for this to end now, for it to end like this, only—

  Of course it’s not enough. You’re still not perfect. It doesn’t matter how skinny you are if you’re ugly. Thin and beautiful, that’s the ticket. Only you chickened out at the end, before they were finished. One last procedure, that’s all. One last procedure, and you’ll finally know what it’s like to be pretty.

  Dr. Bernstein handles the height augmentation—he always does the best job, gets all the best dwarfs. Not that you’re a midget. Or are they little people now?

  Over the course of six months, he breaks each leg three times in three different places. With the help of a special brace while they heal, he gives you another two and one-eighth inches of height. You grin and bear the pain, because it’s worth it. It’s so worth it. It’s gotta be worth it.

  It is worth it, for the pain pills he prescribes afterward if nothing else.

  One day in his office for a follow-up exam, you pick up last month’s medical science journal and see an article about hip replacements. About strong, light, titanium alloys. It seems so obvious. Why hadn’t you thought of it before?

  You dip into the trust fund
(thankful your parents got that big life insurance policy just in time) and pull some strings, grease some wheels, sign some waivers. Three hundred thousand dollars and seven months later, 88% of your bones have been replaced by man-made parts, some lighter than the original by as much as half an ounce. The doctor even helps you pick out the supplements you need to purchase every month from the local GNC to stay healthy.

  “Vitamin D,” he reiterates before you leave. “It’s very important to get your vitamin D.”

  You step on the scale and smile.

  You’ve done it. For sure, this time. You jump up and down, squealing with delight, and clap your hands. They clank a little mechanically now, but the sound is actually quite musical, once you get used to it. Spots dance in front of your eyes. You begin to sweat. You shouldn’t be exerting yourself so much, silly girl. Take a caffeine pill.

  Whew, that’s better. Now . . . what were you doing?

  Oh yes. The celebration!

  You go to your favorite restaurant—you sit at your favorite table—and the waiter, the cute Spanish one who always flirts with you, smiles and brings you your regular order. You take a long moment and smell the delicious aroma of the non-fat artificial vanilla flavoring ice cream substitute, and it’s heaven. You’re in heaven. You know it’s the wrong thing to do, you know that it’s bad for you, but you can’t help yourself: you put your spoon into the ice cream, and then inside your mouth!

  Oooohhh, everything is so cold and delicious! You let the ice cream substitute melt on your tongue, you let it run over your taste buds, you shiver in delight until—

  Enough! You can’t take it anymore! You run to the bathroom and rinse out your mouth with some of the bottled water in your purse. Can’t be accidentally swallowing any, you naughty thing! In your haste to cleanse the badness, you spray water out all over the mirror.

  But what if you were too late? What if you already had swallowed some, just a little, so little that you hadn’t even noticed? You go into the stall and shut the door behind you, and you’re proud for a moment that you don’t even need to use your fingers anymore.