Chapter 13

When he was sufficiently armed with the scripture of the ages, Edmund removed the last nails from the tapestry and pulled down the rest of the crumbling wall..

From the front, the statue looked like a beautiful marble statue that wouldn’t move, no matter how long Edmund prodded at it. Around the back, however, was a large opening at the base of the woman’s torso. A few frayed threads stuck to two threaded bolts suggested the opening had once been covered by a piece of cloth, and perhaps it still would have been, had the rat not found it before Edmund.

The inner workings of the statue were a wonderful collection of machinery. Wheels and gears dotted the innards of the statue’s base, with springs and coils winding their way deeper inside. A glass cylinder sat in a conical nest at the bottom, and several long tines stuck down from the darkness like thin metal stalactites. The tines each had a forked end and a small tightening screw that could squeeze the ends together, several of which gripped small bits of frayed string.

What on earth would these strings connect to?

Edmund searched the curved walls until he saw the tiny pulleys. They were no bigger than pennies and firmly affixed to the stone alcove. There were several along the bottom of the wall and more above Edmund’s head. A quick exploration of the statue’s torso revealed a series of loops and holes just large enough for thick pieces of twine to slip through.

That was how the statue moved; the tines pulled on strings that looped through the pulleys in the alcove, which moved the statue like a marionette.

That wasn’t everything, though: what powered the tines?

Edmund stared at the complicated mechanism but was soon lost in amazement. It was a beautiful and dazzling array of invention and structure. Everything was set in a specific position, placed with a purpose. The complexity and elegance of the design amazed Edmund, and he had to restrain himself from touching everything inside, tracing the path of force and movement that would travel through this strange mechanism.

After an hour, Edmund sat back on his heels; nothing was obviously broken, rusted, or missing. Every gear was connected to another, every belt wound tight. Levers and pulleys inside the machine were all free to move.

If the statue was broken, Edmund couldn’t see how. Maybe it just needed a power source? There could be a large spring that needed winding or a steam boiler that needed lighting. Edmund needed instructions or a blueprint of some kind to tell him what to do.

Where would a blueprint for such a magnificent device be? Somewhere close, perhaps near the statue itself? Edmund searched around the insides and outsides of the statue’s base. With more light coming from the library, he could see the front of the desk was not as empty as he had thought: a veritable lexicon of words and phrases covered the thick stone. It looked to Edmund for all the world like a table of contents.

Atop this carved list, in small crisp letters as clear and beautiful as calligraphy, was: For mine sonne, Rotchild Moulde.

The name Rotchild was familiar. If Rotchild’s father was the creator of this statue, perhaps he had left behind some notes on how to fix it? Stepping out of the alcove, Edmund ran to The Annotated Moulde, a book he had found quite helpful in providing specific details relating to his family’s history.

Sure enough, Matron Moulde’s great-great-great-grandfather was Patron Rotchild Moulde, son of the infamous Plinkerton Moulde, and from all accounts a madman. When the family underwent the major financial and legal trouble brought about by his father, Rotchild signed large amounts of land and several buildings over to the banks for quick and easy capital, regaining some financial liquidity by ultimately crippling the family’s holdings. Afterward, he took most of the family’s remaining funds and invested in short term businesses and backward inventions that failed almost immediately.

He was cruel to everyone, incurably paranoid, and cared only for hording his own personal fortune, which, while sizable, was nowhere near as large as it should have been. The only thing he was remembered fondly for was not being Isaybel Moulde, his daughter, who became Matron at a young age after Rotchild died in a horse-riding accident.

A cruel and unstable man? Perhaps Edmund was in no position to judge, but how could a cruel and unstable man appreciate something of such wonder and beauty as the statue? Perhaps he didn’t like it? It was easy to imagine a cruel Patron covering the perceived eyesore of a gift with a slipshod wall and tapestry to keep the offending object as far away as possible.

Edmund flipped to Rotchild’s father, Plinkerton.

The infamous Patron Plinkerton. He lost the Moulde fortune through foolish investments in dead-end businesses and technologies, and fathered a madman. There was nothing but confirmation of what Matron had told him; Plinkerton was the beginning of the family’s financial and moral decline, followed by the paranoia of his son, Rotchild, and then the madness of Isaybel, the apathy of Albathere, the cruelty of Victrola…

Something itched at the back of his brain. He was forgetting something. What was it?

Shoving the distraction from his mind, Edmund continued to read; According to several accounts and diaries in the library, he was a brilliant scientist and engineer. There were several references in the book to the “Plinkerton Engine,” an engineering marvel that brought incredible prosperity to the city by powering several emerging industries; a few mentions of “Plinktonium,” a strange metal that could conduct heat faster than copper; but nothing about statues.

Edmund hunted the Library until he had found three different books on the Plinkerton Engine and scoured their contents for any useful or insightful piece of information. Luckily, one of the books had a large diagram that detailed the construction of such an engine, including the gyros, pistons, and levers that made up its inner workings. According to the diagram, the Plinkerton Engines were monstrosities that took up almost two full stories in any factory.

The diagram was drawn to scale, however, and scaled down it was obvious: the statue was powered by a miniature Plinkerton Engine. Of particular interest to Edmund was the single paragraph that explained how the engine was fueled by a liquid called Mechanus Vitae, a pale blue concoction invented by Plinkerton that could power a small engine for a decade at least.

Machines were so much like a human body, built from brass and steel instead of flesh and bone. Gears and belts became the joints and tendons, while bellows took the place of lungs, and levers the muscles. When it came to the Plinkerton Engine, Mechanus Viate was blood.

Sure enough, deep in the inner workings of the statue there was a glass tube where the Mechanus Vitae would have been held. Fill the vial and re-string the limbs, and the statue would move again.

He had no idea what the statue would then do, but first things first.

The string wasn’t difficult to find. In one of many storage rooms Edmund had found during his wanderings, he had seen pumpkin-sized spools of thread next to wagon-wheel-thick rolls of cloth. It took him a few attempts to remember which storage room it was, but he eventually found it again on the fouth floor and wrestled one of the pumpkin-sized spheres of thread to the elevator.

He caught his breath as he waited for it to arrive. He caught it again in his throat when the elevator arrived and the door opened to reveal Wislydale standing squarely in the middle of the cylindrical room.

Surprise flashed across Wislydale’s face, his ubiquitous glass of liquor hovering an inch under his nose. “Master Edmund,” a sly smile slithered across his mouth as he spoke through several glasses of gin. “A right pleasure to see you, old chap. By Jove, that’s a jolly big ball of string, what? Off for a nighttime flying of a kite, eh?”

Edmund cleared his throat. “Yes, I thought it might be…fun.”

“Jolly good! I’ll join you,” Wislydale’s eyes trembled.

For a moment neither of them moved. Edmund struggled to come up with some plausible excuse to avoid his inebriated cousin, but he was trapped by necessity.

“I’m about to head out for a walk around the gardens myself.” Wislydale closed the elevator behind Edmund and pulled the lever to the ground floor. “I say, I’ve been meaning to talk with you, young chap. I think we’ve got ourselves a bit of a spot of bother, what? I mean, you being the Heir Apparent and all that?”

“What do you mean?” Edmund asked, trying to ignore the smell of heady alcohol that was filling the elevator.

“Well, you’re a Moulde, what? A member of the family, top to toe, and there are few in our family who think this is a good thing. Those of us here are perhaps the most level-headed among us, what? The others will think, and you’ll forgive my saying so, young fellow-me-lad, but you’re hardly a prime example of high society! Think of the scandal when you go to your first ball! You might ask for the wrong type of wine, or dance with the wrong sort of person… No, no, quite unacceptable!”

Edmund stared into Wislydale’s drink-addled eyes. Kolb had been clear about how to deal with people like him:

“If they think they’re smart,” he had said, “Don’t prove them wrong. Smart people like being right all the time — it’s why they became smart in the first place. Give them what they want, and never challenge them. Then, when you agree with them, they’ll see how smart you are and agree with you too. Understand?”

Edmund thought he did, so he had agreed with Kolb that it was a very smart way of dealing with smart people.

“You’re right,” he answered Wislydale, “quite unacceptable. Outright scandalous.”

“Come on lad, stiff upper lip, and all that,” Wislydale’s attempt at sympathy stumbled over his besotted tongue.

“I’m a problem for the family,” Edmund continued, gently prodding Wislydale like a tumbler in a lock. “What good am I, really?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Wislydale sighed. “Not much at all — it’s true.”

A sudden rush of heat rose from Edmund’s stomach to his face, and sharp anger followed. The yellow bile in his stomach wanted to yell at Wislydale, but instead he clenched his fists as tight as rocks and bit his lip until his choler sank back down his throat.

By this time, Wislydale had gasped in inspiration, and his hand gripped Edmund’s shoulder.

“I say! I think I might just have a solution!” he knelt down like he was talking to a toddler, pointing and gesturing with his glass. “I’ll bet you’re a sharp lad, what? Why don’t I help you, eh? I could teach you all the things that you never learned in that grubby little orphanage about what it takes to live in a world of proper gentlemen and ladies, what?”

The idea was ludicrous at first, but the more Edmund thought about it, the more it made sense. He couldn’t spend his whole life locked away in Moulde Hall like Matron, and how could other important families ever respect him or his family if he didn’t look or act the part? Kolb could teach him how to talk, but Polite Society was more than just charm; it was also odd greetings, dances, and rituals more arcane than anything in the volumes of biology and chemistry. Wislydale could teach him how to act.

“I’d like that,” he said.

“That’s the spirit!” Wislydale clapped Edmund on the back. “Jolly good show! I’ll meet you in the large sitting room tomorrow…ah…no, say Monday before lunch? Then we’ll get started teaching you how to act like a real Moulde, what?” He straightened and pushed open the elevator door, stepping out onto the first floor. He looked back as Edmund stayed behind. “Aren’t you coming?”

“I forgot my kite,” Edmund said, closing the elevator gate.

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It was difficult to get the spool of thread down the library’s winding steps and thin ladders, but Edmund managed just the same.

The statue was just as he had left her, head on her desk as though she had been crying. Edmund crawled to the opening at the back of the statue and the collection of tines that stuck out like a phalanx of spear-men. Fifty-four tines, he counted. That meant fifty-four pieces of string, and fifty-four places on the statue that they connected to.

Popping up from the ground, Edmund counted the pulleys. Fifty-four on the bottom of the wall, and fifty-four at the top. So far so good.

After an exhaustive search of the statue, Edmund found only thirty-six tiny loops and holes on the statue’s body. That meant some of the threads had to double up; to pull back and forth, perhaps? The pulleys didn’t twist, so Edmund could hopefully discern where to tie each thread as he went.

Edmund started with the tine on the far left. Twisting the small key on the end, he fit one end of thread into the tine and closed it with another twist. He tugged gently at the thread, but the key held the string fast.

How long did the threads need to be? Long enough that they could move, but not so long that they would go slack…

Another journey to the shelves brought Edmund to several books on proper use and construction of marionettes. Most of the instructions focused on proper materials and painting techniques, but one of them was explicit on correct marionette string length:

Take ye one thread placed properly twixt finger and thumb, and let ye place no other finger upon thy thread. Keep thy pinkie up. Take ye the height of head to toe of your marionette, and thrice it once. This and no less should be the length of thine strings, and woe to ye who neglect this puritan law.

It took an achingly long time, but after using a sharp brass letter opener he had found in a desk drawer, he had fifty-four pieces of string three times as long as the statue was tall from head to floor. After he fit them into the fifty-four tines, he turned to the pulleys. A thin chair from the library gave him the height he needed, and before long the threads dangled from the ceiling pulleys like jungle vines.

That part finished, Edmund considered his next move. He had no diagram or blueprint for the statue; where would he tie each string? Edmund looked at the statue’s delicately hinged fingers. It all felt familiar, and yet completely new.

Hinge joints, tendons, muscle fibers, and bone. Force applies leverage. Pulleys, springs, and axles, as the fingers open and close, grasping, touching…

In a flash of inspiration, Edmund understood. String by string, he followed the lines of force on the stone body. He tied and looped strings back and forth across the alcove like a spider web. Some were tied to the arms and hands, others to the head and torso.

Finally, Edmund stepped back to admire his handiwork.

It was a mess. String hung everywhere like the cobwebs of a sad spider had been thrown over the whole alcove. It was messy, confusing… inelegant. He considered re-cutting some of the strings, but the book had been very specific, and he could always re-cut later if it didn’t work.

His statue had bones and muscles lying dormant deep in the machine. He had given it tendons, and now he needed to give it life. He needed to give it blood. He needed to brew his own Mechanus Viate.

Edmund found the recipe in a small cloth-bound book in one corner of the library. It was rotting, and several of the pages had been torn out, but the chapter on Mechanus Vitae was still readable.

It was familiar, too. Edmund had read several books on medicine, and The Symphonic Physicium had a whole chapter devoted to cures, tonics, and resuscitations. The principles were the same: there were droughts for increasing the healthy flow of blood to the organs, powders for chilling the body when the blood became too choleric, even a device designed to increase the amount of blood in the body through some reverse leeching process.

Most of the ingredients and tools could easily be found in the storage rooms of Moulde Hall — at least half could be taken from Mrs. Kippling’s pantry — but there were a few chemicals and tools that he had never heard of.

A quick run to the pantry, several of the linen and liqueur cabinets, six storage rooms, and a stop off in the gardening closet later; and Edmund had most of what he needed, but not all; he was still missing three important items. They weren’t in the mansion, that was for certain. He would have to sneak outside and find an apothecary in Brackenburg.

The journey back to the first floor was harrowing. As the elevator dropped closer and closer to the first floor, his heart grew faster and faster. Could he do it? Could he finally walk past the wrought-iron gate into the great unknown that was Brackenburg? It was a terrifying thought, but as far as he could tell, there was no other option.

As he was descending past the second floor, however, he caught a glimpse of Tunansia whisking down the hallway. Edmund quickly pushed on the floor-lever, causing the elevator to groan with the sudden change of course and return to the second floor.

Perhaps he had another option? He pulled open the wrought-iron grating and dashed off after his reclusive cousin, catching up with her in the next hallway. She made no sign that she noticed him, her attention instead focused on the book in her hands, about blood and its many different uses, ills, cures, and properties.

After a few minutes of silence, Edmund cleared his throat.

“What on earth do you want?” Tunansia asked, her stride not relaxing in the slightest.

Edmund licked his lips and tried to think of how to ask for Tunansia’s help. “Just to talk. I don’t know anything about you.”

“Imagine my dismay,” Tunansia said. “I’m a vicious brat of a girl who hates the Mouldes, hates her family, hates Matron, and hates you. What else is there to know?”

“You like science,” Edmund pointed at the book. There was a picture of some strange device shaped a bit like a drill, and a bit like a clamp. “I do too.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about science,” Tunansia sneered. “I’ve been going to Grimms for two years to learn about science, and you’ve read one book a bit above your reading level.”

“I’ve read more than that,” Edmund protested, wondering what Grimms was. “I’ve read the Majestic Chemastrie, Killdot’s Practicum, and Professor Triffle’s Treatise on a Physical Body all the way through. Even the squishy bits.”

“I don’t care,” Tunansia’s pace increased. “There’s more to science than reading.”

“I can learn,” Edmund matched her stride step for step.

“I haven’t laid eyes on you for longer than an hour, and I know you haven’t got what it takes to follow a formula. There’s an art to it. A spirit. Real science has a bouquet all its own. It has an ethos…it has…”

“Poetry.”

Tunansia stopped dead in her tracks, snapping the book shut with a crash that caused him to jump. “You’re up to something,” she stared at him with a terrifying glare in her eyes. “What is it?”

“I want to make something,” he said. Her eyed demanded some level of honesty. “I have the recipe, but not all of the ingredients. I thought you could help me.”

“Why on earth do you think that I would ever bother to help you?” Tunansia asked, her eyes narrowing.

Edmund stood up straight. “Because I would be in your debt.”

If he had said this when she had first met him, she would have laughed or turned away in a huff, irritated at the waste of time. Now, he hoped she realized what his other cousin’s had, that he could be an asset…or a threat.

Edmund was becoming used to long pauses, so he waited patiently until Tunansia finished staring at him. She spun on her heel and began to walk down the hallway, her dress flowing behind her like the wake of a ship. Hoping her lack of rejection was agreement, Edmund followed, jogging to keep up.

They walked for almost three minutes before stopping at a small birch-wood door. It was covered with a strange twisting design that reminded Edmund of a thunderstorm. An ornate anvil was carved into the bottom of the door, while a simple hammer rested on top of it. Tunansia tugged on a silver ribbon at her waist, producing a thick iron key, and unlocked the door.

Her room felt smaller than Edmund’s, but only because it was more full of furniture. Large tables filled the floor, covered with long twisting glass tubes, thick iron plates, strange devices with copper wires and levers, and a softly burning flame that was gently warming a glass vial full of something green. All along one wall hung a strange array of sinister tools of various sizes. The curtains were drawn with only a small gaslight and a few cracks of fading sunlight to brighten the shadowy corners.

Tunansia stepped into the room, tossing her book on a cot-sized bed in the corner. She walked among the glass apparatuses like an ingénue strolling through her garden. As she walked, she periodically grabbed a glass and poured the contents onto a plate or into another vial, or added a pinch of powder or drop of fluid that would make the concoction smoke or shiver. She paused to scribble on a notepad after every three or four steps, a frown on her face.

After she had finished her ministrations, she turned to Edmund with her hands on her hips.

“What…exactly…do you need?”

Edmund bit back the urge to ask for her entire laboratory. He recognized more than half of the instruments on on her tables from pictures in his books, but he had never seen them up close before. The other half were new and fascinating to him. All the experiments he had wanted to try; he could do them here!

But he had a goal, so in a perfectly Moulde-like display of narrow-minded focus, he stuck to his plan.

“I need Linniman’s Catalyst, and an alembic,” he recited. “If you have a spare vial-spinner, I’d like that too.”

Tunansia moved to a large trunk in the corner. She fumbled with the lock, pulled open the lid, and took out a thick sealed glass jar of a faded green liquid. Setting it on the table, she reached back into the trunk and hefted out a large black keg-like metal cylinder that she gripped by a leather handle.

“Here,” she said, dropping the cylinder on the ground with a loud thud. “It’s old — don’t know why I kept it, retorts are much easier to use. I don’t have a spare spinner, just tie a piece of string to a vial, and that will do you. This is all the Linniman’s Catalyst I can spare — If you need more, go buy your own. What on earth are you using Linniman’s Catalyst for, anyway?”

“An experiment,” Edmund said.

“With Linniman’s and an alembic?” She sneered. “That sounds like something you don’t know anything about. Are you looking to blow up the mansion?”

“I have a formula.”

Tunansia snickered. “What are you trying to make?”

“Mechanus Vitae.”

“You’re wasting your time. The last Plinkerton Engine in Moulde Hall was sold the city six generations ago.”

“You know about the Plinkerton engines?”

Tunansia’s laugh was cruel. “Of course I do! I’m not an illiterate fool, I pay attention! It seems to me that you’re heading in a dangerous direction, boy. Chemistry isn’t for the faint of heart or infirm of stomach, and those aren’t qualities you can teach.”

“I’ll find a way,” Edmund insisted.

After a moment, Tunansia walked back to her trunk, tore three pages out of a small black book, and held them out to Edmund. “Here,” she grumbled. “These are some notes I made that might be helpful. If you don’t blow yourself up, come back on Fridays and I might let you help me run some of my experiments.”

Edmund took the pages from her hands. “Why?”

“I have my own reasons,” she said, her eyes glittering in the dim light as she unlocked her door, “and I won’t help you for free. Remember boy, you owe me a favor. Now leave!”

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When Edmund studied at Grimms, he had access to laboratories that would have put the finest scientific institutions to shame. After returning from the Battle at Harmingsdown, he rebuilt the laboratory at Moulde Hall into the pinnacle of modern science.

At the time, he had to make do with a long table on one of the library’s third-floor balconies. A gaslight with the glass globe removed served for a burner, though he had to use a chair to reach it.

He worked for an hour, hopping up and down with different liquids and powders, double checking the recipe and pouring things in and out of all the containers he had swiped. Twice he had to start over after adding a drop too much or stirring in the wrong direction.

Tunansia’s notes told him to put liquids over the flame until they smoked with a spiraling motion, or until the bubbles burst slowly rather than sharply; powders were burnt until they were purple-gray, but not purple-white; and extra spoonfuls of ingredients were added if it was winter, but not summer, and only if there had been a recent rain.

An unfamiliar sensation surged through him. What was this new feeling called?

He should have been exhausted. He had been climbing, looping, and tying strings for hours, and now he was running about like a mad rabbit, peering intently at small piles of powder and thin pools of foul-smelling liquids. Even with the chiming of the mansion he had lost track of the time; every chime blended into the previous. For all he knew it was morning already.

He wasn’t exhausted. He wasn’t even tired. He had burned himself twice on the gaslight and was beginning to feel dizzy from the climbing up and down — although it could have been the fumes — but that didn’t matter. The swirling fumes and bubbling liquid fizzed away in his mind with effervescent elan. He was so close, he could feel it! Imminent success lured him on stronger than any siren song, pulling his body and mind onward without any thought spared for rest.

It was like happiness, but not as calm. Excitement? No, this wasn’t so forward-facing…

Finally, Edmund held up a small amount of thick luminescent blue liquid at the bottom of a tall glass. He giggled as he looked at the description of the resulting liquid in Tunansia’s notes.

“Once you have mixed this solution well, a luminescence of bluish hue will emanate from the Mechanus Vitae. It shall pour as syrup in spring, and the odeur shall be that of a damp bloodhound from an autumn shower. If the smell is that of a moist terrier after a spring rain, the tincture is flawed, and should be disposed of into the nearest rosebush as hastily as polite company will allow.”

The concoction did pour like syrup, though Edmund had to admit that he had never seen syrup. He also didn’t know what a damp bloodhound smelled like, but he didn’t know what a terrier smelled like either, so he decided to risk it.

His cousins had been so sure that he was nothing. Eaten alive, indeed! They all thought he was useless…well, he wasn’t so useless after all, was he? He had proof: he had created a bit of Mechanus Vitae all on his own! He’d show them how helpless he was. He’d show them all!

Pride! He smiled wider. He was Proud of himself!

Peering into the statue, he reached for the small glass cylinder in the recesses of the machine. He wasn’t sure exactly how much of the liquid was required to make the machine work, but he only had enough to fill the vial half way. A bit of wiggling freed it from the machine’s grip, allowing Edmund to pour the Mechanus Vitae into it.

With the care of a surgeon, Edmund pushed his hand through the gears and tines to fit the vial back into place. He had trouble getting it to fit before he realized that his hand was shaking. Taking a deep breath, he steadied his hand and pushed the glass vial into place with a snap.

As he carefully withdrew his hand from the nest of gears, the vial began to glow brighter. There was a whirring noise deep in the machine as the strings begin to tighten. It was like curtains raising on a beautiful stage. White strands of thread rose into the air like angel wings. The tangle of strings became a iridescent spiderweb that surrounded the statue like a halo; a mosaic of lines like a stained glass window in a church.

Edmund stared as the strings became as taught as harp strings. There was a pause, and then the strings tugged in unison, lifting the statue’s body like the gentle hands of a master puppeteer. The statue’s body was lifted like a limp rag doll, carefully straightened, and posed like a mannequin.

Then more strings tightened.

In the blink of an eye, the statue was uncannily human. Her fingers bent and joints twisted as her hands spread wide in a smooth and elegant pose. Her torso leaned as if she was stretching. Her arms flexed and rested lightly on her desk with a poise and grace that made Edmund’s chest hurt. Finally, the head rose, and Edmund got his first look at the statue’s face.

It was not a thin face, nor wide. It was not rough, nor kind. It was like the heads Edmund had seen in the hallways on Greek statues; the eyes open and pupil-less, the mouth an inexpressive line. Her nose was small and straight, her lips plain and smooth.

She was the most beautiful thing Edmund had ever seen.

From deep within the desk, a wheezing cough blew a cloud of dust from behind the statue. There was a pause, and then another cough as the squeak of an ancient bellows pumped into action. Another, this time higher like a whistle. The tone bent and twisted around some inner mechanism as the sound spiraled and waving back and forth. The click of metal tines twisted and pulled and jerked the sound about like fishing rods until it said:

“Hello.”

The voice was faint and rough, rusty from disuse though it came from no living throat. Edmund shuddered; in the span of a single word he had gone from being completely alone, watching an amazing marvel of automatic engineering, to being in the company of something frighteningly alive. Something with a voice.

“Hello,” he answered.

There was a pause, and a sound like a grumbling dog whose head was stuck in a rusty wagon wheel. A series of clicks and whines from inside the statue’s desk coincided with the statue cocking its head.

“Hello,” it repeated. “My name is Aoide,” the statue gave a curtsy, an impressive feat for a seated stone statue with no dress. “Of poetry and song. What can I do for you?”

Edmund was tongue-tied; now this thing not only had a voice, but a name. She was so beautiful, this statue, it was sacrilege to even speak to her.

“I don’t know,” he managed to croak out.

Another series of clicks and whirring emanated from inside the desk. After a moment, the statue shifted again, her head shaking in a perfect display of sympathy.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” she said, her painted smile suddenly apologetic, “Could you please try again?”

“Try what again?”

The statue shook her head in the exact same sympathetic manner. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Could you please try again?”

Edmund thought a moment.

“Hello,” he said.

The hands folded perfectly. “Hello, my name is Aoide, of poetry and song. What can I do for you?”

“That’s a lovely name.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Could you please try again?”

The statue obviously only understood certain words. The question was, which words? Edmund looked at the codex of carved words and phrases on the front of the desk.

“What is A Muse on Midsummer?” he asked.

The statue groaned deep in its bowels before the husky voice purred again. “I would be delighted to,” the statue bowed her head.

For a moment, nothing happened, and then she began to dance. It was amazing to see, her limbs drifting about in a perfect symphony of levers, wheels, and axles. Physics in motion made perfect majesty as her sultry tone drifted out from the alcove.

“A Musing on the Beauty of Midsummer:

With a soft dab of her hands in the air, the statue curtsied once more and relaxed again with her hands on the desk.

Edmund felt something wet on his cheek, and brushed it away. “You recite poetry?” he asked. “Why? Who…” he paused, and looked at the front of the desk again. After a moment, he cleared his throat again. “For mine sonne, Rotchilde Moulde.”

“I am a gift to him,” the statue nodded after another whirring whine. “Given by my creator, Plinkerton Moulde. Would you like to hear his dedication?”

“Yes,” he said, “I would.”

The statue began to dance again, slower this time, with a heavy and purposeful air.

In later years, Edmund came to terms with the fact that he did not have a father. He overcame the pain that comes to one who knows they will never have a man smile down at them and rest his hand on their shoulder with paternal care. He would never see a smile of pride peek out from a mustached lip, or well-dressed pillar of the community choke back tears of joy.

In later years, Edmund came to terms with it.

That week, that day, that hour, that moment… Edmund’s sobs echoed through the Library, louder than the chiming of the Mansion had ever been, saturating the ancient parchment with a grief so primal that the black clouds above Brackenburg tore open and poured black rain on the city.

Records of the time claim it was a storm the likes of which the city had not seen in centuries.

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