that were always stacked neatly. There was the feeling of possibility in the school, too—and it felt wonderfully familiar. But the school had provided an orderly process of discoveries. This room was chaos. She wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“It used to be the kitchen,” Carrick said, walking to the fireplace and tossing a handful of tinder into it. He struck a match and threw it onto the wood. A flame blazed to life. He fanned it, sending a hiss and spray of sparks into the air. “When my project outgrew the library, I moved the kitchen upstairs and took over this room.” He gathered some logs and fed them to the growing blaze. Even though it was high summer, the cellar was chilly, so she welcomed the heat.
Carrick walked about the room lighting lamps and candles. He handed a candle to Penrose, and she helped him with the rest. He continued, “The problem with this room is the lack of light. I have lamps on all the walls, but the large open space where I do my work needs even more light.”
A schematic of the human body hung on one wall. Another had a large calendar. And then she saw what had scared her silly earlier—the wooden beings slumped in their chairs. Her heart stopped, she swore it did, and she brought her hand to her chest to feel its beat before relaxing a bit. What did he do with them?
“Are you coming?” he asked.
“Of course.”
He continued, “Though lamplight is fine, the direct brightness affects my eyes. I prefer candles close by. You’ll be making candles for me. I require special ones.”
“I see,” she said, making a mental note to arrive early and have the workroom lit and ready for him.
He gestured toward the center of the room, where a huge work area made up of many tables pushed together formed a half circle. In the center of the tables, something large bulged from underneath a blanket. Whatever it was, it was larger than a man and twice as wide.
Approaching, she held the candle in the air. “What is it?” she asked, unable to hide the wonder in her voice.
Carrick stood behind her. She neither heard his approach nor felt his presence, so when he spoke, it startled her. He stood inches away. “That is the future. A mechanical man.” He held up his candle. “Go ahead, pull the blanket off.”
She bent down, yanked the blanket away, and the mechanical man stood before her. She blinked and looked up. He was tall, taller than Carrick, taller than any man she’d ever seen. He had a barrel chest, a boxy head and two small lanterns that served as eyes. Wide shoulders sat atop his torso and rivets ran up and down his body like buttons. He resembled a metallic boxer, stout and strong, his skin glistening silver-orange in the firelight.
“What does he do?” she asked in awe. “Can he even move?”
“Anything you want,” Carrick said with pride. “Within reason, of course.”
He seemed to burst with life. He seemed solid. Dependable. But there was something threatening about a heap of metal sculpted into the shape of a human. Some inner part of her recoiled. Not a big part, but enough of a part to steal her words for a few moments as she took in the sight of him. Him. Funny that she thought of it in such familiar terms already.
“Just like in those paperback novels,” she said. She’d once read a scary story about a man who built a steam-powered person and then attached him to a buggy. The man walked across the entire country step by step. When they reached Kansas, the steam-powered man went haywire and killed the man who had created him. That was fiction. She now stood before the real thing, and she wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse about it.
“Yes. Just like in those fanciful stories. Except this one is real.” She’d almost forgotten about Carrick. Almost. But the he stood close enough behind her that when he spoke she could feel the air from his breath on the back of her neck.
“How do you give him life?” she asked. “How do you do that?” It was the thousand-dollar question in her mind. She whispered the next word. “Magic?”
He laughed harshly. “Is that what you heard?”
“Perhaps.”
“And what do you think of the things you’ve heard?”
“You’re not paying me to think about what I’ve heard.” She turned, forcing her eyes to meet his and hold his gaze. “That’s what I think.”
“You’re either very clever or very hungry.”
“Or both.”
“Are you as prim and proper as you look?” The tone of his voice changed in that instant. It grew deep and mellow, almost dreamy. But not soothing. Not by a Georgia mile.
She stood stiff, aware of the length of his body right behind hers. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to. She could feel the heat from his body as surely as she could from the fire in front of her. “Now, you tell me. Do you like to be judged by the way you look?”
“Touché, Miss Heatherton.”
“Penny. Call me Penny.”
His lips graced the tender spot behind her ear. “Penny,” he whispered, saying the name so low that it came not as a sound but as a rumble against her skin. Then he was gone, the hard strike of his boots ringing out on the stone. She was left with a wave of cool air. He strode in front of her to the mechanical man. “Does he scare you?”
“Yes. He makes me nervous. It’s a feeling I can’t describe. But I’m drawn to him,” she answered, unsure if she was referring to the mechanical man or to him.
He was quiet. “Some quake in their shoes when they see him,” he finally said.
“What’s his name?”
“Name?” He laughed, a mellow, rolling, velvety sound. “He doesn’t have one, of course.”
“But he has to have a name. How can you create something that looks so, well, humanlike—and not give it a name?”
“You can name him. It makes no difference to me.”
“Harris.” The name came to her instantly and once she spoke it, it fit nicely. “We’ll call him Harris.”
“Harris,” he said thoughtfully, walking to Harris and running a finger along his steely arm. “That sounds fine. And yes, to answer your question, he can move. When he’s functioning. But that’s part of the problem. Somewhere inside of him, a gear is tooled wrong. The timing is off, so he can’t walk. I’ve altered the design a million times. It seems there’s always a fatal flaw, and I always discover the flaw too late to correct it. Then I’m forced to destroy my creation and start again. I’m hoping that I’ve discovered the flaw in time.”
She looked up. “How do you know that all flaws are fatal? Perhaps you shouldn’t design them with one goal in mind but rather an open idea of their potential.”
He turned. “You’re sharper than I gave you credit for, Penny.”
“Thank you.” She felt a rush of pleasure at his compliment.
The heat from the fire filled the room, making sweat break out on her forehead.
“You
