On my seventh attempt, I shielded my niece from harm and locked her deep within the Cathedral. The duchess of fertility never learned the nature of pain nor grew from her mistakes. Her weaving became stunted, and she favored pleasure as her soul domain. Mortal society turned to debauchery, invested in carnal desires rather than meaningful pursuits: incest, adultery, and rape. Millia Gnu Aye succeeded the throne.
Two quadruple expansion engines, pistons, eight cylinders, and twin screws hummed above Nona’s head. Boilers fitted with forced draught systems and independent electric fans fed heated gases into the furnace, reducing coal intake and maximizing energy output. She was rated for fifteen and a half knots—more than enough power for conception.
Nona inspected the boilers, tiptoeing over metal shrapnel and sparking coals. She rolled the sleeves of her dress up to her elbow and stuck her hand in the combustion chamber. The flames hissed, the blaze licking her arm as she pulled out a molten coal, scarlet red.
Barely lukewarm.
She tossed the kindling back into the furnace, her skin as cool as ice. “Charon, I need more steam. We’re blowing water out of the stack.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The pistons spun in reverse, the legs of the ferryman kicking hard, his body suspended from the ceiling like a whale’s skeleton in a natural science museum.
Gawds above. When did Charon get so big? It felt like she’d been carrying him around in her arms yesterday, but now he towered above her, wearing leathery masks over his lens, each bearing a unique expression. He walked with his hands behind his back, pocket watches dangling from his exposed vertebrae, and a handkerchief tucked into his collarbone. The way he knelt to kiss her hand, offering a white favor for his lady-in-waiting…
Nona swooned, rocking back and forth on her hips, her thoughts swimming in the pages of teen romance, unrequited love between master and servant. That even his body should adapt to play the role… What terrible power lay within her breast to cause metal to change in the absence of a hammer and anvil?
Charon’s many arms dangled, and his fingers twitched. He was ambidextrous, shoveling coal with his left hands and siphoning water from the boilers with his right hands. His thumbs were double-jointed, popping out of place to extend his reach, pulling the conveyor belt and stoking the iron.
“That’s it. Now all we need is more heat,” Nona said, puffing on the coals. “Gawds, I can barely feel this, Charon!”
“Yes, my lady.”
Wheels spun as the ventilation opened under the ash pit, funneling air beneath the virgin coals. The fire roared, turning into a white flame that burned so hot impurities vaporized into puffs of black smoke, leaving behind a gray mass of coke as the boilers screamed like a teakettle hopping off the stove.
“Yes! That’s it, that’s it!”
Nona slid her hands under a chunk of iron and lifted it with her knees. She stumbled around, her legs wobbling, as she rolled the metal into the furnace-made forge. The fire hissed, licking the edges of the ingot and turning the pale blue chunk molten red. She sat cross-legged in front of the combustion chamber, wiping sweat from her brow.
“My lady, Nona. Please don’t stare directly into the flames. Your diode isn’t rated for twenty-five hundred degrees.”
“For the tower’s sake, Charon, I know. You act like I haven’t given birth before.”
Nona closed her eyes, pulling her hair to the side, her latched needle sliding out from its sheath, slim wiring wrapping around her forearm, an ivory handle with a floral gold filigree.
Charon stoked the flames, poking the gleaming red ingot and pulling it back within Nona’s reach. She rolled up her sleeves, the surface spitting when she lay her cheek on the iron, listening close.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
Nona smiled, flames licking her collar but unable to grab hold—a perfect bed warmer.
The bones were visible now, white chalk peeking through the molten core. The human skull was no bigger than her fist and the tibia the size of her pinky. Nona’s diode sparked to life, and she saw the tattered remains of a stillborn’s fate—loose fabric that waved in the heat, lace torn far too early intermingled with the wrought iron and bones.
She hooked the remains of tragedy about her needle and prepared a simple stitchwork, a weave that didn’t require so many laps and loops. Nona licked her lips, threading the broken fate into the molten metal. The incorporeal fabric tensed, turning hard like rebar setting a foundation in concrete.
Charon pulled the ore out of her hands and into the flames, hammers pounding on the metal, warping the edges before it was pushed back into Nona’s lap. Sparks bounced against her skirt like water off wax paper, and she pressed her ear against the screaming metal.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
She trimmed fate’s fabric and wove from the backside to hide her knots and seams. The holes were large, and she made her first stitch half an inch away from the edge. She pulled the needle through until the knot touched the other side and made her second stitch across from the first. Nona pulled the fabric tight, lining the edges of the holes so fate couldn’t pucker, but the needle bounced off the stiff, amber-colored ingot.
Charon pulled the ore back into the fire, his metal arms pushing, pinching, and peeling. It took shape, little fingers flailing with knives, spinning blades, and an obstructed firing mechanism.
Nona jumped from a sudden pop, a misfire.
The ingot erupted into steam and smoke as she wove within the molten metal.
Working along the edges, Nona kept the tattered fabric taut as she moved from left to right, ending her last stitch on tragedy’s reverse side, two overhanded loops, and a snap of her wrists to close the knot. She bit off the thread, turning the tapestry over in her hands.
It felt strange working with fragments shaped from recycled materials. Such things would never be suitable for mortal fate.
“All set, Charon,” Nona said, pulling the chord above her head to sound the steam whistle.
“My lady, I advise you to set the fabric over the gallbladder and loop the corners above the appendix. Hang fate between the lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Nona rolled her sleeves further up her arm and pushed her hands through the molten iron core. The fire hissed, kissing her cheek, the metal parting like water as she felt around inside the baby’s shell. The lymph nodes were soft as butter and the ribs were like mottled clay. Nona found hooks near the shoulders and the pelvis, hanging a stillborn’s patched fate like a second diaphragm spanning the thoracic and peritoneal cavity.
A Gnatu’s fate was bound within and not without.
Nona sighed, pulling her hands out and picking molten bits from her fingers.
Her patchwork was getting better—some puckering around the middle, but otherwise like new.
“My lady, you shou—”
“Yes, Charon, I know!”
Nona huffed, lifting the larvae into her arms, its fingers twitching, and blades spinning as she rolled it into the furnace for the final touch.
Charon hooked the collarbone and pulled the waking creature through the super-heated coke and onto the conveyor belt. The malformed ingot, now a moth wriggling in its cocoon, squealed, many bladed fingers poking through a thin layer of impurities. Charon spun the lens from molten glass, the tendons from silicon, and the joints from nickel and iron, capillary beds laced with copper wire, and the aorta an isolated superconductor.
Nona followed the conveyor belt as a hundred arms shaped joints and ball bearings, O-rings, and lug nuts. Charon filled the sockets and screwed the torso in place. Pressurized liquid nitrogen filled the arteries, facilitating an intense pulse, a multi-valve magnetic resonance chamber. Again, she heard a misfire, a sudden popping noise from a twenty-two at short range. The projectile struck the ceiling, bouncing around the room.
“Nona, the orphanage isn’t safe. You may return to your room,” Charon said.
“I’m staying right here!” Nona sat at the end of the conveyor belt, humphing as she crossed her arms.
She closed her eyes, swinging her legs, her nostrils flaring, taking in the scent of ionized copper and steel. Her chest tightened, a feeling of anxiety gnawing at her breast.
Was this what it was like to be an expecting mother?
Nona opened her eyes to a small Gnatu stumbling around on the conveyor belt. Its knees trembled, and its six arms flailed as if drowning in shallow water. She smiled, lifting the creature into her lap. It squealed like a stuck pig, blade-like fingers cutting Nona’s arms as she held the Gnatu to her breast, her dress stained scarlet red.
“My lady, you’re injured!”
“I know what I’m doing, Charon!” Nona said, shouting at the museum relic hanging from the ceiling. “Shhh.” She turned to the creature in her arms and rocked back and forth. “Mommy’s here. That’s it. Mommy’s here.”
The blades quit spinning, and the needles retracted, her blood staining the inside of the larva’s gears.
“I’m sorry, life-giver,” it whispered in her ear.
“It’s okay. They’re just scratches.” Nona cooed, rocking with her left arm as she inspected it with her right, pulling open a tape measure with her teeth.
The knives were twelve and a half inches high carbon folded steel, the bullets twenty-two caliber forty-grain high-velocity rimfire, and the needles twenty-three-gauge, latex-free, sterile hypodermics.
“It’s a boy!” Nona beamed, zipping the tape measure closed. “I was right, Charon! It’s a boy!”
“Your enthusiasm is noted. Please hold still,” Charon said, dabbing her bloody cheek with one of his arms.
“Do you have a name, sweetheart? Or do you want me to give you one?” she asked.
The little creature spun around in her lap, kicking its legs. A newborn child. “My name? My name is Caladrius,” he said.
“Hello Caladrius, I’m your mother, Nona.” She smiled, eyes brimming with tears. “It’s so good to meet you.”
“Nona? Nona is our heart. Nona is our duchess.” Caladrius made dribbling noises, crawling around on his belly.
“That’s right,” she said. “And guess what? Since it’s your name day, make a wish. Anything you want and I will grant within my power.” Nona held up her hand, a tiny glowing coal still burning from the tip of her finger. “Make a wish and blow out the candle.”
“I want Nona to be happy—”
“Stop!” She covered his mouth, his teeth spinning like drill bits. “Caladrius, you will spend your life in service to me. Please, I ask you, no, I beg you, just this once, think of yourself. What is it you want? A wish on your birthday should be about you.”
Caladrius’s head spun, the bolts in his neck turning red hot as his fingers twitched.
“Please, sweetheart, for me?” she asked.
Caladrius reached up, touching Nona’s cheek as he whispered in her ear. “I want to be a bird,” he said, blowing out the spark on her finger.
— ✦ —
A bird… What an interesting request and one that got her thinking. Caladrius was the first she’d ever asked, but now it seemed obvious. They wore outlets not because they were tamper-resistant, but because they looked like turtle shells. They hid in the mop, wore the teakettle, and clomped around awkwardly in work boots because they looked like the whiskers of a tomcat, the colored breast of a toucan, and the leathery hide of a desert crawler.
The Gnatu imitated life, or perhaps they were envious of it.
Nona chewed on her lip as she walked the sandy bazaar, caressing a swaddled bundle. The citizens squealed with delight as she passed, crawling, rolling, and hopping along crudely numbered squares written in the sand. They played with burnt shoelaces and stumbled around as if they were first learning to walk.
She blushed, smiling brightly. They were so cute!
Nona fell on her knees, covering her slippers in sand. The Gnatu rolled around on her skirt and tickled her elbows. She giggled, the little creatures hopping up and down, trying to reach the sausage curls in her hair.
“Mamma, mamma!” they said, crawling up her waist and tugging at the bundle in her arms. “Who’s that!?”
“Everyone, gather around.” Nona unwrapped the swaddled blankets. “Say hello to your baby brother.”
Caladrius leaped, balancing on her knees and flapping his wings, a series of socket wrenches stitched into his tail like pinion feathers and his shiny breast fashioned from precision-milled shim stock.
She made the frame from a stainless-steel flexible flue and bound the ratchet set with zip ties and copper wire. The tools clanged as he hopped around, scratching the sandy earth with his chicken-wire toes.
“Okay, that’s enough showing off,” Nona said, lifting him into her arms and wrapping him up. “We have to find you a home.”
“I’m a bird!” Caladrius’s head peaked out from under the blankets, his camera lens hidden within a cylindrical sheet metal beak.
“Yes, you are, sweetheart.” Nona smiled, a proud mother, his enthusiasm infectious.
“My lady, remember your decorum.” Charon trailed behind her, his shadow casting an almost oppressive aura.
He wore a mask of concern, scratching the dry leathery flesh along his cheek, offering her his hand.
She stood, brushing the sand from her slippers and bowing her knees, her gown barely touching the ground. “Good day to you all,” she said, giving Charon a side-eye, hoping to see his approval.
He shook his head, his lens focusing on her soiled stockings.
Great, that’s all she needed, another Clotho, but this one didn’t sleep.
The Gnatu scattered, returning to their playful activities, swinging on PVC pipes, and building sandcastles with rebar and aluminum.
“Maybe I oughta take a page from Morta’s book and wear something darker.” Nona humphed, squeezing Caladrius against her chest.
“Or perhaps you should stop playing in the sandbox like a child.”
“I’m a child, Charon!”
“Besides, black doesn’t suit you, my lady.”
Nona snorted.
What would he know? She’d never tried wearing black before. Maybe she’d ask Morta to swap gowns with her. Nona knew her elder sister looked cute in cold shoulder cami strapped summer gowns. Morta thought she was so clever sneaking into Nona’s drawers at night, but she knew what her sister was up to.
Nona shielded her eyes, the immaculate sun blazing overhead, the corona masking the incomplete structure within, shimmering like a mirage. The destitute remains of sunken vessels surrounded her and the Gnatu took shelter beneath the decks, their lenses glowing from the shadows, watching as she passed.
Expecting parents burned azure flames, smoke belching from the leftover stacks of rusting vessels. So many were desperate for a child, praying before the orphanage, but she could only choose one at a time. Her heart ached. Would that she could raise Caladrius, but Nona was a daughter of fate, a mother to all.
She couldn’t play favorites.
She chose the remains of an Olympic-class Ocean liner with a smooth deck, opulent smoking rooms, and gold-inlaid rigging. The propeller jut from the sands with a single cylindrical stack, a silvery trail of smoke emitting from the furnace. Charon lifted her onto the deck where she inspected the anchor, counted the life preservers, and measured the length of the lifeboats.
Prospective parents should always scrub the decks, sand the pipes, inflate the preservers, polish the marble, and wax the plating. Nona nodded to herself, checking the evenness of the deck planks and the size of the portholes.
She could never be too careful when raising children.
“I’ve decided, Charon,” she said. “This is the one.”
Nona held Caladrius in her right hand and took the ladder up the smokestack with her left. Charon grabbed her shoulder, stopping her before she could ascend.
“Lady Nona, please allow me to escort you. It’s far too dangerous to proceed alone.”
She frowned.
Why did the entire garden treat her like a porcelain doll, ready to break any moment? It was annoying. If Charon had his way, she’d be locked in the tallest tower of the cathedral to be presented before her father, spotless and untouched. Nona wanted to spread her wings, even if that meant she might fall. Life deserves to be as free as death.
No!
Her knuckles turned white against the railings.
Life deserves to be free of death!
“I’ll be fine,” Nona said more harshly than intended. “A mother should be expected to do this much alone.” She brushed his copper fingers from her shoulder.
“My lady, I must object. The railings look loose, and the footings are unstable. Allow me to take your hand.”
“Leave me alone, Charon!” she shouted. “I’m doing this myself! That’s an order!”
Charon twitched, the plates along his lens shifting, his left side in a tug-o-war with his right, conflicted between orders to protect and obey her. He sat on his knees, his head tilted towards the floor.
“I’ll be fine, Charon.” She touched his cheek, smiling at him. “I promise.”
The railings were rusty and the bolts loose, but the climb was much easier since the smokestack lay at an angle. Even with Caladrius in one hand, she clambered up the side quickly towards the spout. She leaned over the opening, coughing as she got a face full of smoke and steam.
“I expect you to be on your best behavior,” Nona said, unwrapping Caladrius and holding him over the chimney. “No running in the halls or shouting in the library.” She sniffed, wiping her eyes with her elbow.
“Don’t cry, mamma.” Caladrius flapped his wings. “I’ll visit you, always!”
Nona smiled, resting him on the lip of the chimney and letting him go. He slid down into the furnace, nestled in the warmth of stale coals and into the arms of his new family. She rubbed her nose, taking the first steps of the ladder, but her skirt caught on the railing and she slipped.
Nona screamed, falling from the chimney and landing on the deck with a thud. A piercing pain shot through her body, a piece of broken rebar sticking through her belly. Pools of blood ran down the slanted deck like a running curtain.
Charon raced to her side too late, his lens now a vibrant green color as he pressed against the wound to stop her bleeding.
She cried out, reaching for the metal jutting from her gut.
“Don’t touch it, Nona!” Charon slapped her hands away and lifted her into his arms like a broken doll, her hands trembling and lips quivering.
“I’m sorry, Charon.” She blushed. She blushed! More embarrassed than ought else, slipping up so soon after declaring her independence. Maybe Charon was right. She was porcelain. “That was stupid, huh?”
“Don’t speak!”
Nona whimpered, blood dripping from the tips of her fingers.
Gawds, sissy! You clumsy fool! Said Clotho, beating against her ears. What am I going to do with you?!
Nona tried to open her mouth, but her lips quit moving, her heart hammering in her chest.
I can slow the bleeding, but only if you give me control!
The tips of her toes grew numb and her sight blurry. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, the world around her changing. She snapped awake, now in a place she didn’t recognize.
Nona sat on a wooden swing, kicking her legs and flying like a bird. She felt the breeze in her hair as she launched herself off the ground higher and higher, giggling like the little girl she was.
“But, Nona, it’s not fair!” came a voice below her.
She dragged her feet across the ground until she came to a stop. Another girl stood in front of her. She wore the same sleeveless blue gown, her chestnut hair tied into tight sausage curls, her eyes green like the sea.
They were practically twins.
“Sissy! It’s not fair! Why do you get to play all the time?!” Clotho shouted.
Give me control, Nona!
Nona felt a pang of guilt, a tightening in her chest as she leaped from the swing and wrapped her arms around her younger sister.
“I’m sorry, Clotho! I didn’t mean to, honest!”
“Will you let me play for a while?” Clotho asked, rubbing her eyes while sniffing.
Give me control!
“Of course I will!” Nona wiped away her tears, giving her sister a toothy grin and guiding her to the swing.
“Thanks, big sis!” Clotho smiled back at her. “Will you give me a push?”
Nona gently nudged Clotho’s back to set the swing in motion and her sister did the rest, kicking her legs and giggling like the little girl she was.
“Big sis,” Nona said in a groggy daze as the world around her went black.
She always wanted to be called that.