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The Automaton’s Wife
(Somewhere near the beginning of Book #2)
While I desired nothing more than a leisurely lie-in while someone prepared my breakfast and brought it to me in bed, that was not to be. For a start, I needed to use the facilities, which raised an uncomfortable reminder of our lowered station in the world.
Please pardon me as I divulge details of a delicate nature: back in London, we had access to civilized infrastructure, including chamber pots at night. In that way, we were spared the inconvenience of venturing out of our bedrooms for a trip to the outhouse. However, back in London we’d had a servant specifically tasked with emptying the pots in the morning.
Jonas, our gardener / driver / cook, had absolutely refused to perform this service from the day we arrived. This wasn’t an auspicious start to his continued employment, I might add. Despite bribes and threats issued by Mrs. Steward, and Lilly’s tearful implorations, he hadn’t relented in his resolute refusal. It appeared the stubborn little man preferred the possibility of unemployment over that odious task.
I can’t say I blame him — a despicable job, cleaning up after other people’s night deposits — but it did cause quite a stir in the house, for chamber pots were a necessity for any civilized family. And Mrs. Steward was determined that we would maintain our dignity and superiority despite our poorer circumstances.
Jonas however triumphed, so we were obliged to use the outhouse at all hours. Thus I was required to leave my cozy room for that reason, if nothing else.
As I was fully awake and the sun was shining, I didn’t overly mind. In any case, I needed to clear my head of the nightmare-cum-memory I’d just experienced, its hideous tendrils still lingering on my conscience. In the illogical way of dreams, this one had combined my dead brother and a completely unrelated creature I’d left back in London.
“Ridiculous,” I mumbled into my pillow. “Koki and Drew could never possibly meet.”
The she-demon named Koki had been searching for me ever since my ill-fated trip to West Africa a few years previous. She had the unappealing ability to transform into a Praying Mantis of any size, and the odious habit of biting off people’s heads.
It’s all Gideon’s fault that I had the nightmare in the first place, I mused as I pushed myself out of bed. Ever since he’d disappeared with a stolen automaton, I’d been deprived of my evening lullaby that he would sing to me.
And if the above weren’t reasons enough to extract myself from the comforts of a warm quilt, there was the matter of the zebra carcass and its necessary removal.
The zebra had been on the property with a herd when we’d arrived here. The herd had eventually moved away, upon realizing that their presence was not welcomed by Mrs. Steward who harbored strange hopes of cultivating a garden in the wilderness.
One zebra however had remained, controlled by a serpentine spirit with an aversion to flowers. Now that the zebra was dead, I didn’t dare contemplate the fate of the snake spirit. I could only hope it had found a new host well removed from our abode.
But about that carcass…
“The body isn’t getting any less smelly,” I said as a breeze carried to my overly developed olfactory senses the distinct odor of early decay.
I hurriedly dressed, compulsively double and triple checked that my chewed-up right ear was sufficiently covered by a strategically placed lock of hair, and left my room for the outhouse and the kitchen, in that order.
Jonas had already stoked the fire in the stove’s belly and put a blackened kettle on the surface to boil. On the wooden counter nearby sat the round and ornately embossed metal teapot, a gift from my mother. While I’m no one’s servant, Mrs. Steward had implored me to take over the task of preparing breakfast.
“The preparation of tea and toast is best left to those who actually know what English tea and toast should look and taste like,” she’d declared while staring pointedly at Jonas when making that comment.
The dark man had merely shrugged off the implied critique, delighted I’m sure to have one less task to do, and I’d taken to overseeing the breakfast preparations.
As I went about my appointed undertaking, I glanced around automatically, expecting Gideon Knight, my dearly dead but not quite departed husband, to float through a wall at any moment. Obstinate ghost that he was, he failed to make an appearance.
You’d imagine I’d feel relief at the lack of haunting, if not outright joy at finally being allowed full widowhood. Yet a mild disappointment lingered, if for no other reason than I couldn’t castigate him for his uncivil habit of walking through walls. But ever since he’d stolen a life-like automaton from one of our few neighbors, I hadn’t seen or heard from Gideon.
A knock interrupted my glum musings. As it was too early for social visits — few as there were to begin with – I anticipated the worst. So it was with mild surprise and relief that I opened the door to reveal Dr. Cricket, inventor of the automaton and other useless contraptions. His countenance was aglow with anticipation even as his eyelids fluttered in a furious fashion.
“My dear Mrs. Knight,” he said, his thin blonde mustache twitching above his pale lips. “I heard the most extraordinary news concerning a recently deceased African equid. Is it true?”
I glanced past him to the black and white mound of fur and flesh desecrating our front garden. “If by equid you mean a zebra, then yes, we have one matching that description and condition.”
“Brilliant,” the good doctor exclaimed with more enthusiasm than was normally polite to exhibit, particularly in relation to a corpse, and all before breakfast. “I would be most grateful if you would allow me to take possession of the body.”
My first thought was of the serpent spirit that had until recently held that claim of possessing the zebra, and I wondered how Dr. Cricket hoped to do the same. As far as I could tell, he had absolutely no paranormal powers with which to carry out such an act.
Then I realized his true intent — to take the zebra away with him — and blamed my first thought on the lack of my obligatory cup of morning tea.
“You wish to take the corpse away,” I said with some relief at my inner clarification of the matter.
He stared at me with his pale, blinking eyes, his eyebrows expressing a certain degree of confusion, as was his normal reaction to most of my statements.
“Well, yes, madam,” he said. “More to the point, I wish to examine the zebra, to learn more of its physiology and, in this particular case, the cause of death.”
I refrained from informing Dr. Cricket that I already knew the cause of death: possession by a malevolent, energy-draining spirit. Instead, I smiled demurely and responded, “By all means, good sir. I leave the matter entirely in your hands.”
His eyes opened wide and momentarily ceased their rapid blinking. “Thank you, Mrs. Knight. You are most altruistic in this as in all matters. I shall remove the animal from your property with great haste.”
With that pronouncement, he spun about, almost collapsing in the process as his legs became briefly entangled together.
I didn’t feel it necessary to mention that it was he, not I, who was performing an act of altruism. Instead I retreated to the kitchen, immensely pleased that I wouldn’t need to handle the matter, or the dead zebra, any further.
Jonas was in the small kitchen, squatting on the rough stone slabs, his countenance all melancholy and wrinkles, such that I paused in the recital of my good news.
“Good heavens, what is it, man?” I demanded with little sympathy. Surely nothing nastier than a dead zebra on the lawn could’ve occurred so early in the day.
Jonas scratched the black-and-gray stubble covering his scalp with rough fingernails. I don’t think he ever maintained those nails, and most likely didn’t own a file with which to do so; he let the gardening work keep them from growing too long.
“Well, Miss Knight,” he lisped through the gap in his front teeth
. “It’s Nelly. She isn’t herself, not at all.”
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