Steampunk Hearts by Jordan Reece

Author:Jordan Reece [Reece, Jordan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-17T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

“I see ’um,” the boy said, his eyes fixed to some far-off point. He was the new one, and he was in thrall beside Jesco’s private table in the dining hall. The nurses and attendants were busy and had not noticed. Jesco was eating quickly, having received a message that he was going to be picked up for further investigative work on the Jibb case. The message had also told him to have a bag packed for several days.

Nine-year-old Sfinx had rather the opposite problem of Jesco’s. His thralls concerned the future, he had no way to guide them, and there was no way at all to protect him from it. Luckily for the boy, the thralls were random occurrences that came upon him once or twice a week. He remained marginally aware of his true surroundings while in thrall, and when Jesco did not reply, Sfinx repeated, “I see ’um, sir.”

“What do you see?” Jesco asked.

“What’s here and what’s not. The asylum, see, it’s not here. It’s gone. Ripped down and carted away. You’re dead. I’m dead. Everyone here is dead. There’s a house here now, with a great big picture box on the wall. The pictures are moving. They’re telling a story about a dragon. A man and woman are sitting on the couch, and they’re wearing funny blue trousers. I see ’um. The house rattles a little ’cause the flying tube full of people is passing over.” His look became more distant still. “The house is gone. They’re dead. Their children are dead, and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. Now this is a street. It’s full of shelled carriages that move on their own, no horses or autohorses, and there are dozens of people going into shops for the holidays. I see ’um. Shops on the first floor, apartments on the second floor, little colored lights strung everywhere in the trees and everybody is talking and laughing. But then it’s quiet. Real quiet. You never seen anything so quiet, sir, so quiet when it shouldn’t be quiet at all. The buildings are crumbling. Curtains hang out the broken windows. Some places are just heaps of rock, and the street is cratered. Nothing grows. Nothing moves but shadows and it’s always dark.” The boy’s head turned so that he could see something, and he said fearfully, “No. Something is moving out there.”

He fell silent to stare at it. Jesco motioned to an attendant, who set down a tray and came over. The woman put her hands on the boy’s shoulders and said kindly, “All right then, love, leave Mr. Currane to finish his meal.”

“And then it’s green,” Sfinx said as he was steered away. “Green grass and blue sky and white clouds, and little yellow flowers growing in bunches. Everywhere you look, it’s beautiful. A woman with dark skin and a red gown appears from a shaft of light like an angel. She’s walking through the grass and picks a flower, and then she laughs to the heavens.

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