AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
In a small building, squeezed into a tiny corner of a London slum, Ariadne Davy knelt next to her father in the studio. The cold and wet room was her father’s sanctuary and where he spent most of his days, working away on his inventions.
“It’s late, Pa,” Ariadne said with worry in her voice. “The supper gets colder by the minute.”
“It can wait, Ariadne,” her father, George Davy insisted. He gestured at the parts scattered around his work table. His notebook that contained the blueprints of the project smudged with grease at the corners, nuts, bolts, screwdrivers of varying sizes cluttered the work table, even a brass mortise gauge. “This can’t.”
Ariadne sighed. She knew she couldn’t fight with him. She had after all inherited his stubbornness.
“How’s your sister? Is she all right?”
Ariadne frowned at the strange questions. “You saw Leda just an hour ago when she came to bring you hot tea.”
George ignored her. “Are you taking care of her? Sisters must always stick together.”
Ariadne’s frown deepened. She didn’t understand why Pa was asking such questions. She had been here like this with him at his work table several times. In fact, Ariadne loved tinkering with the bolts and nuts as much as her father did. Just a month ago, she had devised a small box so that the oil didn’t spill out from the stove while they cooked. However, something about this particular moment felt different. She just couldn’t place a finger on it.
“Leda is fine,” she said when her father continued to look at her expectantly. Pa nodded as if satisfied with her answer. “I knew I could leave her to your care without worrying about her.”
Ariadne shook her head. She didn’t like where this conversation was going. “You’re here to take care of us. Both of us.”
Pa looked away, staring into the distance. The studio’s windows were boarded up for privacy and no one was allowed in without her father’s explicit permission, not even to clean or dust out the room. Grime had accumulated on several of his old inventions, forgotten with time after he failed to acquire a patent. The King’s new rule that had come into effect a few years ago demanded official documents and a royal seal for a particular new invention to be used in the market.
Leda had expressed her disapproval at what her father did several times. But George Davy wasn’t a man to be brought down by words and disappointment, even as none of his inventions brought him the recognition he deserved. Ariadne knew that he was a brilliant man and one day, the world would know it too.
George held something under the blazing light of the work table lamp. The lamp, too, had been created by him and consisted of awicklamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen.
“What is it?” Ariadne asked peering at the device.
“This is my greatest invention. And, my dear, it’s going to save a lot of lives,” he said with what sounded like pride in his voice.
“How?” she asked, curious.
“I’ve designed it as a portable lamp for mine workers. Its mechanism is similar to this.” He nodded to the bright lamp on the table. “But in a compact manner. And since it is sealed, it will drastically reduce the chances of explosion.”
“Can you tell me how it works?” Ariadne asked, fascinated by what she saw.
“Air enters via tiny holes of the mesh, but the flames of the lamp cannot pass through it. Apart from giving them light, if they keep it on the ground they can even detect the absence of oxygen in the passageway. The wick will be snuffed out if enough of it isn’t present and they can make out of the mines before they suffocate.”
“Pa, that’s brilliant,” Ariadne said. She thought of all those helpless mine workers, so many who died every year.
“Thank you, Ari. All I wish is to see it exist in the world before I go.”
Ariadne glanced up. Until then everything seemed to have been pulled out from a distant memory, but then it began to shift and change. Her father’s features became soft and blurry as if she was watching him through a glass window. “You’re not going anywhere, Pa.”
George shook his head and smiled sadly at her. “I don’t have much time left, Ari. You have to take care of yourself, your sister, and everything I leave behind.”
Ariadne reached for her father to comfort him, to give him a gentle hug, and remind him that he wasn’t alone and that she was right there fighting for him. But as she shot her hand out, she touched nothing but air.
“Ariadne,” Pa said, his voice echoing in her mind. Ariadne bolted upright in her chair. The wick of the lamp was snuffed out so she awoke to complete darkness that threatened to swallow her. She placed a hand on her heart to calm it down. She was at the head table of the studio.
It was just a nightmare, and a terrible one at that. Tears streaked down her cheeks as the pain of his absence settled in her heart.
She looked around the dark studio and she was all alone. Her father was long gone. He had passed away three months ago after a sudden stroke. It was sudden and it was brutal. He hadn’t seen the next day’s light.
In her dream, she had seen her father again, as she had often since his passing. She clasped a hand to her forehead where beads of sweat had collected. She sobbed, mourning her father in the darkness, as reality finally came crashing down on her.
She looked down at the work table. The lamp, broken down into its various parts lay on the table. She had pulled it apart, trying to fix the design, and had probably fallen asleep tinkering with it. It didn’t have a name yet. Pa had made a point to name all of his inventions after they were done, but this one had remained unnamed after he passed away. Ariadne couldn’t bring herself to give it a name yet so it remained a nameless project. But it was also the one that had brought her terribly close to success. Just a little while longer—
