Clockwork, Curses, and Coal by Rhonda Parrish

Author:Rhonda Parrish. [Parrish, Rhonda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Retold fairy tales, Fairy tale retellings, Steampunk fairy tales, Gaslamp fairy tales, Gaslamp stories, Steampunk stories, Victorian fairy tales
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Published: 2021-03-02T07:00:00+00:00

Sappho and Erinna

Lex T. Lindsay

The bar is the sort of place made for someone like Evy Wiles. Tucked into the alley behind the train station, it’s dirty and loud, the floor often vibrating from the movement of the steam locomotives entering and leaving St. Andrews.

Evy sits with her leather boots up on the table, a beer in her hand, the worn sleeves on her men’s shirt rolled up to show the deep black lines of tattoos crawling up her pale arms. She glances at the clock next to the bar and watches its gear-shaped pendulum swing back and forth behind cracked glass.

The governor’s man is late.

One table over, someone is loudly going on about the moral decay brought on by more women working outside of the home. By the time the gentleman in the too-nice suit arrives, Evy is quite literally elbows-deep in a bar fight. She’s bleeding a little. Her opponent, sprawled unconscious atop the remnants of a chair, is bleeding a lot. Panting, Evy runs her fingers back through her short, dark hair to right it.

“This is the second time I’ve found you in such a state, Miss Wiles.”

“This is the second time you’ve been late.” Evy re-takes her seat, throwing her boots back up on the table. The governor’s man, known only as J, sits across from her with his shiny black shoes firmly on the floor. J looks exactly the same as he had a week ago when they met in a different bar closer to the Governor’s Mansion. Jet-black hair cut and styled in the fashion of the day, deeply tan skin, and sharp brown eyes.

“Your message said you have the solution to Governor Winston’s family mystery.” J tilts his head to the side, and Evy sneers. “Is it true, Miss Wiles? Did you succeed where the others have failed?”

“I’ve done what was asked of me.”

“I hope for your sake that you have.” J leans across the table. “Do tell, Miss Wiles.”

Evy takes her feet down and leans in conspiratorially. “Shall we start at the beginning?”

***

Evy doesn’t go to the Governor’s Mansion in the dead of night. The dead of night is when creeping about is more suspicious, not less so. So she goes just around dinner, when men are still promenading with women in corsets and gowns with bustles. J lets her into a side door commonly used by staff.

“Governor Winston has offered you the study in the west wing to use until his daughters go to bed,” J says, leading her through long hallways lined with flickering gas lamps encased in glass. He nods at them. “The latest invention. The glass keeps them from starting a fire or blackening the walls. The supports hide tubes used for ventilation.”

“What will they think up next?” Evy asks absently, craning her neck to look up at a painting of a nude woman surrounded by blue fabric. Her body has been rendered in soft, feminine curves from her biceps to her belly and thighs. “Aren’t you far

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