Ages of Wonder Page 22

  Patrick Finnegan never did say how he came to be so lucky in his prospecting, and there were some who claimed there was something almost supernatural about his knowing where to pan and where to dig. Finnegan himself said he had simply become a good man with a shovel while working on the railroad and it was that and the luck of the Irish that led him to dig in the right places.

  But Finnegan told this story on to my granddad, no mean storyteller himself, about how the leprechaun for once provided his people with something far more practical than fairy gold. Patrick swore to Grandpa that every word was true and my Grandpa said he saw the very shovel on which the leprechaun danced. Whether or not the part about the dragon is as true, I’m not sure, since according to Finnegan only the leprechaun and the Chinese Celestial workers could see it, but he added, “Sure if the half of it’s true then why not the entire article altogether?” And that’s good enough for me.

  THE PRE-MODERN AGE

  Most historians agree that the modern era was born in the dark days of the Second World War. Before it began, yet after the heyday of steam power, was an age that played witness to countless wonders of technology and miracles of science. The world changed on an almost daily basis, and people found themselves dizzy trying to keep up. It was an age, truly, of wonder—wondering at humanity’s seeming triumph over the forces of nature. How, then, could the mythical, mystical, or metaphysical hope to compete?

  The Stone Orrery

  Jennifer Crow

  A brief, sleepless summer had settled over Saint Petersburg, and Nadya stood outside the gate of the Voronezhsky Palace, trying to glimpse something that shouldn’t exist. Every so often, when the breeze lifted the leaves, sunlight caught a glint of curving metal. When it did, her breath hitched in her throat. If she could find a way in, the metal beast might save her and her mother.

  She leaned against the decaying gate, straining her thin arms. Though she’d seen fifteen winters, she was small for her age, and at first the gate did no more than groan. But at last the hinges gave way, flecks of rust pattering around her. The gate hung crooked in the wall, leaving a gap barely wider than her head. Sideways, she pushed through, fingers digging into the crumbling mortar of the wall.

  Within, the garden had run riot. Ghosts of paths led deeper, toward the charred ruin of the palace, but vines and wild grass nearly obscured the flagstones. Nadya drew in a breath. The air was heavy with the scent of something sharp and green, like sun-warmed sap, and beneath it the mossy, earthy smell of decaying vegetation.

  “Now,” she whispered. The sound of her voice gave her courage—that, and the thought of the warm, sweet pastry she could buy with a few of the kopeks the professor had promised her. All she needed was to produce an antique wonder for him. “This must be something marvelous.”

  The way to the metal beast led through the darkest part of the wilderness. She pushed into the vines, biting back a cry as thorns dug into her cheek. Afraid for her eyes, she held up her hands and pushed through, letting the spines scratch her palms.

  It felt as though the garden didn’t want her to go on; twigs snagged at her hair, vines twined around her ankles. As soon as she fought free of one captor, another seized her. But at last she pushed through the last barrier into a little courtyard, and disappointment bit deep into her heart.

  The metal beast was as wonderful as she’d hoped, but was as tall as she was and far wider than her outstretched arms. Much too heavy, she knew, to carry back to the professor. Curving sweeps of tarnished brass, inscribed with leaves and birds, held spheres of smooth glass. No, stone, she thought as she brushed her fingers across the smooth surface. Cold even in the sunlight, they were the most beautiful things she’d ever seen—green, purple, gold, even a flecked blue. Though that one, she saw, was broken.

  She touched a shard that still jutted from the setting. A little loose, like the tooth of an old monster, it came free in her hand. She cupped it in her palm and studied it. No chisel mark marred the smooth curve of it; someone had carved out two half-spheres and joined them together somehow. She tucked it in the pocket of her dress and resumed her exploration.

  Nadya thought she detected a faint line around the green ball, but it was a translucent gray stone sphere that held her attention. Something moved in its depths.

  She bent closer, sure it must be a trick of her eyes, a shadow seen through the stone. But when she laid her hand against it, the shadow moved, coiled.

  Nadya took the sphere in her hands and tugged. With a faint ping the ball came loose and she dropped it. When it hit the flagstones, it broke open along the seam, the two halves falling apart to release a column of smoke. The shadowy pillar took on a woman’s form, though Nadya could still see the trees behind her.

  A ghost, she thought, and backed away until the vines embraced her with their rough arms. She tried to turn, but they held her fast. The shadow woman approached, her face pale as cream against her dark dress and darker hair. Her fingers, which faded to mist at the tips, brushed Nadya’s face. They left chill tracks on her skin.

  “I’m sorry,” Nadya babbled. “I didn’t know. Please forgive me.”

  “Do not fear.” The woman smiled, as cold and sharp as the winter wind. “I have longed for a visitor.”

  Nadya cowered against the vines. A thorn dug into her neck, and blood trickled down her back.

  “Release her,” the woman said. Her voice snapped, and the vines pulled back.

  Nadya took a step, legs trembling. “How did you—”

  “This is my garden. They must obey. As must you, since you carry a bit of it with you.” She stretched out her hand. Nadya’s fingers drifted to her pocket, where the cold shard of the sphere lay.

  “I need it.”

  “Why?”

  So Nadya explained about the professor’s research, and his quest for objects from the past. The woman watched her with unblinking eyes, a lion’s eyes, gold and honey and blood. At last Nadya held out the shard in reluctant hands. “He won’t believe me if I don’t show him.”

  “And then there will be no money for you.”

  “No medicine for my mother. No rent.” And no pastry, she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud. Still, the way the woman’s tongue touched her pale upper lip, it seemed she understood the unspoken. Or perhaps she’d heard Nadya’s belly; it rumbled again.

  “Take it, then. But promise me this in exchange: bring the professor to me.” Her shadow fingers brushed the broken stone, and Nadya tucked it away. “Soon.”

  “I will,” Nadya promised. She turned, and the vines and branches rustled out of her way, leaving a pathway open all the way to the broken gate.

  Beyond the palace garden sunlight flooded the quiet street. A black carriage passed, its curtains drawn despite the heat, the doors lacquered in a red and gold design. Nadya stayed well clear; now, in the reign of the third Alexander, Yelagin Island no longer held the brightest flames of Saint Petersburg society, yet her threadbare dress and smudged apron still made her stand out.

  Back in the city proper, she trudged through the bustle of the markets. Wood and canvas stalls crowded the sidewalks, offering secondhand clothes and books, overripe fruit and stale bread. Even that was beyond her means, at least until she found the professor.

  Yet he wasn’t in his office at the university, nor would the doorkeeper take a message for her. Nadya fingered the stone shard in her pocket and shrugged, unwilling to let the withered doorkeeper see her disappointment.

  The trip home took longer—the tenement lay on the fringes of the city, near the Winter Market. Her steps dragged as she ducked down an alley to a courtyard strewn with garbage. Ignoring the perpetual stench of boiled cabbage and urine, she climbed three flights of stairs to the narrow room she and her mother rented. An enterprising landlord had partitioned off a larger room, with thin boards for walls and a door that never quite closed.

  Nadya waited for a moment until she heard her mother cough, then entered. “How are you, Mama?”

&nb
sp; Her mother coughed again, a wet gasping that caused Nadya’s own heart to seize in her chest. “Well enough,” she said at last. “Did you have any success?”

  “A bit.” She pulled out the remnant of the blue stone sphere and handed it to her mother. “I found this in a garden. One of the abandoned palaces.”

  “You must take care. Ghosts don’t like visitors.”

  Nadya thought of the smoke-tinged woman and shivered. “I don’t suppose they do. But look at it. The professor will give us lots of money.”

  “Buckets. We’ll be able to move to the front of the building with the clerks and army officers. And eat pastry until we burst.”

  “Don’t tease, Mama.”

  “Oh, you’re too young to lose hope. Look at this little miracle you’ve brought home—I feel better just seeing it.” She handed it back and tried to stifle another cough.

  “It sounds worse. We must take you to the doctor when I’m paid.”

  “It costs too much. And the medicine doesn’t help.” She waved delicate fingers at a stoppered glass bottle that held a smear of greenish-brown fluid.

  “It will if you take it as you should.” Nadya opened it, releasing the smell of peppermint and pine and alcohol, so sharp it burned her eyes.

  “Not now. It makes the coughing worse.” Her mother lay back on the pillow, her pale blue eyes distant. “Tell me more of the garden.”

  So Nadya told her, and her mother listened with the faintest smile playing at the corners of her mouth. And she didn’t cough, not once, until Nadya finished.

  “Tomorrow, all will be well.” When Nadya sat on the edge of the cot, her mother took her hand in a papery, fragile grasp. “You’ll see. Sweet buns and wine for all. Do you remember the story of Vassilisa the Bold? Only think how bold you have been today.”

  Nadya sat beside her until her breathing changed and she knew her mother had drifted to sleep. Then she gently freed her fingers and spread her own blanket on the floor.

  The next morning, on her way to the university, she lingered for a moment in front of Filippov’s window. On shelves decorated with paper cut in the shape of snowflakes, silver trays as wide as her arm held cakes and pastries. Colored icing trickled over the edges, and cream oozed out of the thin, flaky layers.

  Nadya licked her lips. A man in an apron, sweeping the floor before the first customers of the day, paused in mid-motion to glare at her. With one last glance, she hurried on.

  Professor Barshansky was in his office, and looked as though he’d spent the night there, what with his rumpled suit and unshaven face. When she stood in the doorway, he was so engrossed in the papers on his desk that he didn’t acknowledge her at once. Finally she cleared her throat, and he sat back, annoyance creasing his face. “Yes?”

  “Nadya Aleksandrovna, sir. You told me to come to you if I found any artifacts.”

  “Ah. And you’ve found something.” He cleared away the papers. “Show me, please.”

  She worked the shard of stone from her pocket and laid it on the desk. When she started to explain, he cut her off with a quick gesture and an “harumph.” He turned the stone over in his thick fingers, his wild eyebrows knit in a frown as he studied it. At last he said, “Worthless.”

  “But it’s carved. Someone made it.”

  “Yes, well, it’s lovely work. I’ve never seen anything like it before. But there’s no context.”

  “Context?”

  “Who made it, where it was found . . .”

  “Oh!” She allowed herself a little smile, then. “It’s part of a machine.”

  “A machine?”

  “Like the new mills by the river, only much, much nicer.” She described it, and the professor’s expression shifted between incredulity and hope. At last he said, “Well, I think you must take me to this marvelous machine.”

  Nadya had hoped the professor would hail a hansom, or at least pay the fare for one of the horse-drawn trolleys, but it seemed he meant to walk all the way to Yelagin Island. As they went, the city woke up around them. Shopkeepers set out their wares and called to passersby, governesses led their charges on promenades, a few late revelers staggered home looking the worse for wear. The air held a hundred scents, animal and vegetable and mineral.

  Nadya stopped at the broken gate of the Voronezhsky Palace. “In here. If you look to the right, you can just see it through the leaves.”

  It took a little while for the professor to wedge himself in the gateway at the right angle. “Fool girl,” he muttered. “Might as well look for the wind in a field.”

  And then his muttered curses stopped, and she knew he’d seen it. He pushed against the gate, and it groaned as it widened. Nadya followed.

  “This place wasn’t abandoned very long ago,” he said, wrestling with the vines. “Such wildness in the garden is most unnatural.”

  Nadya thought of the vicious thorns and their mistress and hung back. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Nonsense,” the professor said. “Come along. You can show me exactly where you found that piece of stone.”

  She pointed him in the right direction and trailed after. Soon the courtyard opened before them, the machine like a metal tree. The professor gasped and then paced around it in silence.

  “An orrery,” he said at last.

  “What, sir?”

  “A machine to measure the movement of the planets in the heavens. There’s the sun at the center. Tiger’s eye for the stone.”

  He pointed them out in turn—green malachite for Venus, the broken lapis lazuli orb for earth, with its alabaster moon. There were others, but Nadya lost count. She hoped the professor’s fascination with the machine meant money for her and her mother. “So it’s very old?”

  “It predates 1846, at least.”

  “How can you tell?”

  He straightened, hands clasped behind his back. “William Herschel’s planet is represented, but not Leverrier’s. And anyone who had the skill to create a masterpiece like this would surely have known of his find. So this is forty years old at least, probably more.” He spoke with his chin in the air, as though addressing the heavens.

  “Of course,” he continued, “it will take a good deal of work to return this to the university.”

  “Your pardon?”

  “I must take it back for further study.” He picked up the two halves of the translucent gray sphere and fitted them together.

  “I don’t think she’d like that, sir.”

  “She?”

  “The woman who was here. She came out of that ball you’re holding.”

  The professor regarded it for a moment and burst out laughing. “A woman—out of . . . ridiculous, my dear.” He slotted the globe carefully into place. “Saturn. Once, it must have had a ring around it. No, you need not embellish the story. It is quite spectacular enough as it is. I suspect this may be the work of Igor Salitsev, the noted artisan.”

  “His son Nikolai, actually.”

  Nadya started. She hadn’t heard the woman’s approach, though she had to have passed through the surrounding undergrowth. The professor smiled, as though it was perfectly natural for someone to slip unheard through a riot of overgrown shrubbery. “Really, such a thing is impossible to say without further study.”

  “I watched him make it. He let his father have the credit.” The woman trailed her finger over the nearest orb. Though she’d gained an aura of substance since being freed, Nadya noted that she still lacked solidity.

  “Ridiculous,” the professor said again. “You aren’t that old. Though if you have some provenance for it, I’d dearly love to see it. And of course, you must tell me if you own it. The university—”

  “Will not be taking my orrery. Though I might allow you—and you alone—to study it further.”

  The professor cast a glance at Nadya, as though she might mediate between him and the woman. Nadya was about to shrug, but she decided to speak up. Better that than lose her commission for finding the orrery. “Is there no way t
o solve this to the satisfaction of you both?”

  “The orrery cannot leave my garden, or else I will be trapped forever. But the professor is welcome to study it, if he will also make repairs—and bring it in line with current knowledge.”

  “That would be butchery!”

  “Is it any less cruel that I must stay here between then and now? Look at me!” Her hands brushed his face and he jerked back with a gasp. “I sent the girl for you so that we might help each other—the orrery for my freedom. Think on it—we will speak again.” She turned her back, took two steps and vanished into the leaves, as completely as if she’d never existed.

  Nadya released a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry,” she told the professor. “I thought she wanted to see you.”

  He blinked and shook himself. “Not at all. Such a curious thing is a great pleasure. And I am sure I will find a way to bring her around to my point of view.”

  Nadya wasn’t sure whether the ‘curious thing’ was the orrery or the woman. “She is very like a ghost.”

  Professor Barshansky scooped up half of the translucent gray sphere and polished it with the hem of his coat. “Smoky quartz. You don’t often see a piece of such size and quality.” He tucked it close to his body, holding it in place with one arm, and led the way back to the street.

  Nadya followed him even after he passed the street that led to her tenement. They had almost reached Filippov’s before she summoned the courage to speak. “Sir?”

  He grunted in response, neither turning nor slowing.

  “Sir, you promised to pay me for the artifacts I found.”

  “Ah.” He stopped and patted his pockets without looking at her. “I seem to have left the money in my office. Come by tomorrow and I’ll pay you then.”

  “But—”

  He continued on his way, leaving her on Filippov’s doorstep. Nadya spared a brief glance at the trays of tea cakes, hand pressed to her aching belly, and then she hurried home.