A groan rattled through his clenched teeth, and for the first time since his army days, Theodore was tempted to swear. Loudly. Until another slap of wind caused him to look up.
A giant automaton owl hovered in flight above the warehouse, creating gusts of wind with every flap of its broad wings.
Theodore’s jaw dropped to join him in the puddle. He blinked, but the marvel did not disappear. He’d hit his head. Cracked his skull wide open and lost his mind. That was the only explanation for the sight before him ... or was it?
The mechanical wonder turned, catching the sunlight with its gleaming brass feathers and transforming the world below into a swirling kaleidoscope of shadow and light. He’d never seen a machine constructed on such a scale! The owl’s outstretched wings could span the width of Kingsley Court’s immense ballroom, and standing at full height, its ear tufts must surely graze the vaulted ceiling.
In graceful silence, the owl winged its way his direction, drawing closer and closer until the delicate ticking heartbeat of a clockwork movement set his own heart to sprinting. Two round eyes, crafted of amber glass, set their gaze upon him. Behind those vast windows to the soul, at the helm of a refashioned ship steering wheel, sat C. E. Drosselmeyer.
The marvelwasreal! And judging by the murmur and shuffle of feet behind him, it was beginning to draw attention. Theodore glanced left and right. Uniformed ship captains. Disheveled longshoremen. A few three-piece-suit merchants. All dredged their courage with a net of curiosity and inched closer, pointing and gawking at Drosselmeyer’s triumph of engineering.
Unpredictable things, crowds. One moment awestruck and curious, the next panic-stricken and furious. Theodore willed the old codger to perceive the warning in his furrowed brows and in his mouthing of the wordsBe careful.
Outfitted with goggles and a pair of leather gloves, Drosselmeyer responded with a smile. Then he turned the steering wheel to the right. Without a sound, the clockwork owlrotated one hundred and eighty degrees and vaulted into the clouds, soaring off with the agility of its avian inspiration as it made for the clear blue horizon.
When the last glimmer of brass dimmed from sight, Theodore came to himself. He lumbered to his feet, avoiding eye contact with the blokes still standing about as he wrung fetid water from his trousers. Like a tot who’d wet his clout, that’s how he must look. And smell. The pretty little grump might deign to laugh when—
Rusted cogs! He’d forgotten Miss Stanton!
CHAPTER
6
How could Grand be gone? Just ... gone.
Clara stood in the middle of a considerable concrete floor, surrounded by four clapboard walls that had once housed the only invention Grand ever kept secret. His wonderous flying machine. The great owl that just moments ago had winged away with a third of her heart.
Surveying the open roof, she blinked at the daylight pouring in from the azure sky, an unpredictable expanse that could alter its mood from cloudless contentment to raging gale in the mere second it took for lightning to flash its jagged blade. Even now, Grand was facing those erratic elements. Without her to navigate ... to remind him to eat ... to make sure he was safe.
Imagined thunder rumbled through her as a shudder that buckled her knees. No. She would not give in to futile hysterics. She wrung her hands of their traitorous tremors. By might and main, she must gather her fragmenting wits anddevise a course of action. Inhaling, she steadied herself with a deep breath and then scurried to check the flight log.
Grand’s long-neglected second desk stood like an old draft horse. Stout and sturdy. Four deep drawers contained tools and parts for tinkering, but the narrowest one, located middle top, housed the owl’s flight log. At least it had years ago. Before grief clipped Grand’s wings.
With a gloved hand, Clara yanked open the slim drawer and exhaled. Bound in leather the color of freshly brewed tea, the flight log lay just where she’d hoped. She removed her gloves and tucked them into her pocket before picking up the ledger, softened and creased from use. Laden with memories that wafted on the faint aroma of peppermint. She’d forgotten how much she missed this place. Missed the time spent here with Grand before the warehouse had been left to rust. Back when the roof opened without a sound, its mechanism regularly oiled and maintained, and Grand took off on clandestine excursions made under the cover of moonless nights that she’d help record pre- and postflight. Wind speeds, machine performance, and flight patterns to aid recovery in the event of a crash.
“Just incase,just in case,”he’d said.“Never know whenI might need you to find me.”
Clara swallowed.Please,Grand,help me find you now.Cracking open the ledger, she flipped through entry after entry written in the naïve flowery hand of her youth. Near the back cover, she at last spotted Grand’s familiar scrawl. Not in the form of a flight itinerary, but in a page-long letter marked with the day’s date.
March 29, 1860
Dearest Little Atlas,
Please do not fret upon finding this note. Though you may feel otherwise, I assure you, I have not acted rashly.What I’ve done today, I’ve done in complete possession of my faculties after days of serious thought and nights of sincere prayer. My leaving in this way, I believe, is necessary for both our sakes. We’ve pretended, you and I, for far too long.
The time has come for us to embark on a true adventure and experience the sights we’ve beheld only in imagination. I had wished you to join me in the sky like you once did, but I doubted you might be convinced to relive those joyous times. Therefore, I’ve opted to entice you to follow my trail with the allure of a merry scavenger hunt. You shall find my next clue in the capital city where your mythical namesake holds the firmament upon his shoulders within a mapped marble hall.
Please join me on this journey, Clara, bringing along the gift I’ve left for your use. The time has come for you to dream again and finally write your own story.
Your devoted,
Grand
A twitch tugged the corner of her right eye. This was too much. Too much information to absorb. Too many emotions to squelch. If only Grand had spoken to her about all this ... if only she had believed him in earnest when he’d tried to at the Globe. If some horrible accident befell Grand... A rogue tremor shook the ledger from her grasp, and it fell into the open drawer.
Steady,Clara.Refortifying her emotional barricades with a deep breath, she retrieved the little book, and in so doing, uncovered a parcel wrapped in brown paper that she’d failed to notice before. Was this the gift Grand mentioned? She set the ledger aside and made quick work of the wrapping to reveal a journal and a pen. Crafted of weightysilver, the pen was outfitted with a lid, hook, and chain for attaching to a chatelaine, while the pocket-size journal, bound in crimson leather, was embossed with the wordsAn Adventurous Lady’s Guide to Travel. She shook her head. If Grand wished her story to be written, he should’ve chosen a more fitting title.
Tucking Grand’s gifts away in a skirt pocket, she flipped through the ledger’s pages once again. There had to be more information hidden in here somewhere. Something besides a vague clue and an “alluring” scavenger hunt. She read Grand’s note again and then turned the page over, revealing a single sentence scrawled on the backside, as though written in a hurry.
