Cogling Read online

  A little boy raised his hand. “Mommy said our king is Elias.”

  “Ebel lived thousands of years ago. Our good king Elias is one of his decedents.”

  Edna smiled. Even if the king lived distantly from his citizens, he kept the country functioning. His laws maintained peace and order. Now if only he would do something about the mutants. She thought hags and ogres shouldn’t be allowed to wander freely. Who knew what spells they were capable of performing?

  “Tell how King Ebel killed all the bad beasts in the forest!” a girl yelled from the crowd.

  “Excellent tale.” The storyteller rested his foot against the edge of the wagon. “Be mindful, King Ebel never killed all the hags. See, there’s one!” The young man pointed at a hag, garbed in a cloak that swallowed her stout form. A basket poked free from the folds.

  She turned to look at the man on the wagon with the children gathered around, and her hood slid back. Edna caught a glimpse of kohl-rimmed silver eyes before the hag ducked, rushing faster along the sidewalk.

  Good. Flee. Be gone.

  Edna pressed her lips against Harrison’s head as a shiver crept over her skin. The storyteller’s words lingered, despite the sunshine flowing through the city streets.

  They swore revenge.

  “We should go.” Edna steered her brother past the crowd, but coldness lingered at her back. She adopted a lecturing tone. “Hags can’t be trusted. They deal with magic. Their eyes can pierce a human’s soul. The king should keep the hags locked in their own district, where they can’t mingle with humans. Without hags, regular people might learn to make their own medicines. Then hags won’t be needed at all. They can find another kingdom to haunt.”

  Steam locomobiles radiating scalding heat roared by; the sleek brass contraptions shining as brightly as the steel spokes inside the black tires. A little girl sitting in the back of one yelled, “Hello!” The stark white of her leather coat vanished with the locomobile around the corner.

  “What do you think it’s like to drive one of them?” Edna asked Harrison. The wealthy might ignore the city’s poverty, but she had never been able to squelch her awe over shiny baubles.

  “I do not know, sister.” His voice sounded gravelly.

  Frowning, Edna pressed her cheek against his again. It still felt cool, neither hotter nor colder. She sent a silent prayer to the seven Saints that Harrison’s unchanging condition be a positive sign.

  What if his attitude meant the darkness in her had rubbed off onto him? What if he couldn’t fight off the evil? She bit her lip; he had to be safe from that. It had to be something different.

  Passengers shoved their way into a scarlet trolley car at the next stop. Edna broke into a run so they wouldn’t miss their ride and have to wait the half hour for another. Her arm throbbed from carrying her brother’s weight and her ankle boots pinched her toes. As the last man ascended the stairs, Edna reached the trolley, panting. The wooden steps creaked as Harrison climbed aboard—odd; he must’ve hit a growth spurt. She noticed a crack in the wood where he’d placed his foot.

  “Where to?” Rolling his eyes, the driver nodded to a map of his route drawn in red paint on the front window. It ended at the edges of Moser City.

  Beyond those limits, Edna couldn’t picture what the kingdom looked like. She’d never seen another map, but she’d heard Moser City was located in the south, and the capital, Flynt, was the kingdom’s northernmost city. She yearned to have the driver take her to Flynt, where King Elias lived. Anywhere wonderful and different.

  “Waxman Estate.” Edna handed him six pennies, enough for her and Harrison to travel the nine stops to the manor, then nudged her brother down the trolley’s aisle, squeezing past the standing passengers. She scanned the seats to find an empty one, her eyebrows drawing together as she discovered each seat occupied.

  “Just our bloody luck.” Edna stood on her tiptoes to grab a leather strap hanging from the ceiling. When Harrison didn’t move, she jerked him against her side. The trolley car lurched forward, and everyone swayed. She bumped her shoulder against a man wearing a black satin suit.

  He glared down his long nose. “Keep your grime to yourself.”

  Edna bit her lower lip to keep from snapping back and lowered her gaze. She’d done her best to scrub in the washbasin that morning, but her brown curls still felt oily. Heating enough water to fill the tub in the kitchen, sectioned off by a screen, took too much time to do more than once a month. If only they could have a tub with running water, like at the Waxman Estate.

  As the trolley left the heart of Moser City, fewer people entered and more passengers exited. Edna found a seat in the back and pushed Harrison against the window. Buildings and vehicles passed by, a mixture of locomobiles, trolleys, stagecoaches, and buggies. Once they crossed the train tracks, the streets transformed into dirt instead of gravel, with two story houses surrounded by white-picket fences and green lawns.

  They rumbled past a church with stained glass windows and a woman sweeping the walkway. Edna kissed her beads. The seven Saints would help keep the darkness from her.

  The trolley slowed and stopped on squealing brakes in front of an iron gate.

  “Waxman Estate,” the driver bellowed. “All out!”

  Edna stood, but her brother remained seated.

  “Come on.” She prodded him down the aisle. As Edna stepped off, the trolley started with a metallic roar. She stuck her tongue out at it. It might take her where she needed to be, but the ride was never pleasant.

  Inside the gate, a tomtar sat in a high-backed chair, smoking a pipe and forming a bear from a clay hunk as he guarded the entrance. Although an adult, the tomtar’s square head reached her shoulders; thanks to avian ancestry, the tomtars remained short. A coat with brass buttons strained against his thick body; his bird feet peeped from the hem. She always wondered how his legs, no thicker than her wrists, could support his stocky form.

  He cast his gaze at the surroundings before he grinned, showing chapped, black lips and a broken front tooth. The wrinkles in his face crinkled, glistening with oils, and his crow eyes narrowed. His green felt hat sat lopsided atop his shaggy copper hair; since tomtars only grew hair in patches, the hat helped hide his bald spots. She’d seen the bald spots once, speckled with black moles like his face and hands. Despite his grotesque features, he never seemed to think he was ugly, and only hid his talons.

  “Mornin’, Miss Mather. Lovely day, ain’t it?” The stench of sage and earth wafted from his leathery skin, a dark tan that reminded her of caramel.

  She glanced at the gathering gray clouds, a downpour. “Lovely,” she echoed. Contradicting him might make his grin fade, and she loved how his smiles made his dark eyes glow.

  The tomtar swung open the gate. “Mornin’, Harrison.”

  Her brother didn’t answer. A shiver coursed along Edna’s spine, and she tugged her coat closer around her shoulders. Even though humans considered themselves better than tomtar slaves did, she wanted to make sure Harrison was polite. “You don’t have to be rude just because you don’t feel well. Since when do you pass up an opportunity to talk?”

  Harrison allowed her to lead him around the garden to the servant’s entrance, through the hallway to the dressing room, and stood in the corner until she threw him his uniform. At least she didn’t have to force him into the blouse and slacks.

  “Bloody luck, Harry-boy. It’s like you’ve never been here before!” Edna buttoned the front of her white blouse and stepped into her brown skirt, tying the apron overtop. So long as she kept her gloves clean, Lord Waxman allowed her to wear them. She set her dress on her hook, and hung Harrison’s discarded clothes behind it when he still didn’t move. She ground her teeth. Yelling at him wouldn’t help, especially if he felt ill.

  “Go find Teddy. The butler,” she added when Harrison stared with blank eyes. “He’ll tell you what to do today. Scamper before you’re late and get a walloping.”

  Harrison marched down the hallway. E
dna wished she didn’t have to always take care of him. For once, she’d like to be his sister instead of his substitute mother.

  “I swear to the king,” Edna exclaimed when she entered the kitchen. “Harrison’s cute, but he needs to grow up. Today he’s acting like he can’t even tie his shoes right.”

  Chopped vegetables covered the table. Edna licked her lips. The engineered vegetables her family ate tasted like iron and copper. Only the smells matched real food. She longed to crunch on a cucumber fresh from the Waxman garden, but she only snuck leftovers when the cook was going to toss them in the garbage. Even though they tasted delectable, she didn’t want to risk being fired. In the cities, only the wealthy had the luxury of gardens tended by servants, who weren’t allowed to consume what they grew.

  The tomtar cook fiddled with the stove, a speckled apron stretching across her wide girth. A bonnet hid her bald spots, but copper curls stuck out around her elongated ears. “Lady Waxman wants you. She’s having a luncheon today for her bridesmaids.”

  Another damper on Edna’s foul day; she snorted. “I’m not her personal maid. If I was, I’d get more than a brittin a week.”

  Cook peeled back her black lips in a hiss, nodding her square head toward the shelves over the sink. Edna spotted a spyder perched on the corner.

  Too edgy to care what the Lord’s spy recorded, Edna snapped, “Everyone knows I’m not a lady’s maid. I’d have to be richer for that privilege.” Even if Lady Rachel wanted her for the post, Edna wouldn’t be allowed to accept it by society’s standards.

  “You shouldn’t be talkin’ to the likes of me.” Cook strode through a spill of flour to grab a rolling pin off the wall. Although Cook kept her dresses long to hide the bird feet, white talon prints followed her path.

  Edna averted her gaze to watch the spyder. If tomtars and human servants weren’t supposed to communicate, they shouldn’t work together. “I’ll talk to whoever I want.” By now, Lord Waxman should be used to her companionship with the tomtars.

  Cook scratched a mole on her cheek, glancing around the kitchen as though Lord Waxman were about to spring from a nook and whip her for conversing with a human. “Mind it; you’re sure good at fixin’ hair and makin’ a table look nice.”

  Edna rolled her eyes. So, her talents returned to nip her heels. “Anything going up to Lady Rachel except me?”

  “That tray set with teacakes.” Cook waved at the table.

  Edna’s mouth watered as she ogled the miniature muffins and blueberry scones. The blueberries came from the garden, not the engineered kind her mother sometimes bought. Those left a coppery aftertaste, but she’d eaten a Waxman blueberry off the floor once. She could still taste the sweet juice and firm, sugary skin.

  Hairs rose on her arms, and she tightened her hands into fists around the tray. The evil burned in her chest. No, it couldn’t rise. Edna breathed through her nose to calm herself.

  Picking the tray off the table, she turned toward the doorway and almost collided with Teddy, the butler. He held Harrison by the collar of his black shirt, yet the boy remained expressionless.

  “Looks like your brother’s got himself a set of sticky fingers.” Teddy shook Harrison and metal flashed around her brother’s neck—a pocket watch that wasn’t his own.

  Bring your power, burn up those that I desire.

  dna gaped at the pocket watch hanging by a thin chain from Harrison’s neck. Her heartbeat raced so hard, her pulse boomed in her ears as she set the tray back down to avoid toppling it. Harrison had never owned anything so fine. Lord Waxman would fire them if her brother had stolen it. Where else would a fifteen-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy find work? They’d have to huddle on the street begging for pennies, wrapped in their coats and shawls. If Lord Waxman told the Music Hall manager, he’d let their mother go and they’d be homeless as well as out of work.

  “That’s our mother’s.” Edna’s fingers shook so hard she clenched her hands into fists, praying her teeth wouldn’t chatter. Their future depended on her lie. “The Music Hall loaned it to her. They always make her wear pretty things.” Stop rambling. Don’t look suspicious.

  The butler shoved Harrison toward her. “Why didn’t Harrison tell me? He looked as if he’d never seen me before.” Teddy’s gray mustache twitched.

  Edna rubbed her prayer beads. If she explained Harrison didn’t feel well, Teddy might send him home, but if she said Teddy had spooked her brother, the butler might take offense.

  From the stove, Cook flared her pug nostrils, shaking her rolling pin. Flour spattered her leathery flesh. Cook should know Harrison wasn’t the type to thieve, but a tomtar couldn’t talk back to a human butler.

  Harrison stared, unblinking, at a copper pot hanging from the ceiling.

  “Mum said you could wear it at home, not out.” When Edna reached for the pocket watch, Harrison jerked away. He blinked once, then his jaw dropped and a wail exploded from his mouth. The noise echoed off the white walls, reverberating through the room. Edna grabbed her brother by the shoulders.

  “Stop it, please!” She slapped her hand over his mouth. His lips felt dry. He closed his eyes, the scream heightening.

  She couldn’t feel his breath on her palm.

  Teddy cringed. “In the name of our goodly king, make him cease.”

  “Harrison!” Edna yanked him against her, and he stopped. As the sound faded, a pop came from a shelf by the stove.

  “Never heard such a racket. Wouldn’t think the boy would ‘ave it in him.” Clucking her tongue, the cook lowered her hands from her ears. Her talons clicked as she crossed the room, picking up tiny pieces of metal with her thick fingers. “If that don’t beat all. The spyder broke.”

  “Wasn’t our fault. Lord Waxman can’t make us pay for it.” Edna squeezed Harrison tighter. He held himself stiff and straight, less soft and warm.

  Eardrops for an infection used to cost twenty-cents. Unless the hags raised the price, Edna could pay for them in four days, if she walked to work and saved her trolley fare.

  “He’d best wise up, or we aren’t letting him stay.” Teddy removed the handkerchief from his suit coat pocket and wiped his brow. “We can’t have this goin’ on here, especially with the Lady’s gathering.”

  Edna glanced at the tray for the party. “Harrison, you’re gonna snap out of whatever’s gotten your knickers tied up. Make sure you don’t lose that watch, either. Mum will box your ears for taking that, I swear.” That should sound realistic; the butler wouldn’t know their parents never raised a hands against Harrison.

  “And make him clean his shoes,” Teddy said as he marched from the kitchen. “The boy left a wet spot on the floor.”

  Harrison stared at the stove.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Cook said. “Give him a second to shake his mind clear. Never knew a child t’ act like that.”

  “Thank you,” Edna breathed. If he could make it through the day, she’d boil him tea at home and wrap him up in their blankets, hold him all night. He might feel better tomorrow.

  Shaking her head, Edna grabbed the tray and hurried for the stairs. The rustic wood creaked as she ascended, leaving the basement kitchen behind for the upstairs world of gild. Green carpet covered the main hallway lined with china cabinets displaying gold-embossed porcelain.

  Edna rounded the corner, the floor switching to the red velvet that carpeted the front stairs. She should take the back stairs, meant for servants, but she was already late. Tea sloshed in the blue pot and a drip slithered from the spout as she used her back to push open the door to Lady Rachel Waxman’s bedchamber. Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, draped with white lace. The pink wallpaper matched the silk blankets on the canopy bed. An automation personal maid stood beside the wardrobe sorting gowns.

  The automations looked like humans, except with shining copper bodies. Rachel’s wore a black dress and crimson apron to keep from appearing nude. Edna would’ve preferred it undressed. Machines couldn’t be n
aked, so it seemed a waste to clothe one.

  Lord Waxman could only afford three. The other two he kept as his personal assistants. Edna had heard from Teddy that the king had replaced all his human servants with automations. Teddy had growled; how dare King Elias replace hard-working humans, who needed the pay, with machines?

  Lady Rachel sat at her vanity, smoothing verbena cold cream across her brow. “These bumps just won’t go away. I look disgusting.”

  Leave it to Rachel to make her feel dirty. Bumps covered Edna’s face, since she couldn’t afford strong soap or cream. Edna ground her teeth as she set the tray on the bedside table. The food smelled of a tomtar: earth scented with sage oil to make the stench less offensive.

  “My lady, your tea.” Edna snickered, wondering what the Lady would say if she called it tomtar tea.

  “Finally.” Rachel glared at Edna’s reflection in the vanity mirror. “Bring me the cup and a muffin, then I need you to prepare my hair. You have such beautiful hands, Ellie. You could be a pianist.”

  Only the wealthy could become pianists. The poor didn’t have the money or time to practice. Edna stared at the cherub mural on the ceiling to refrain from scowling. Of course Rachel would have to remind her about something she could never do.

  “Ellie,” Rachel snapped, “I want my food.”

  The evil came again, biting against her ribs and clenching around her heart. Edna bit her tongue before reminding Rachel that her name wasn’t Ellie, again. Maybe the evil should burn her—no, not even Rachel deserved that. Edna poured the tea into the cup Cook provided and carried it to Rachel on its saucer. When she brought the muffin, balanced on a linen napkin, Rachel pushed her hand aside.

  “I’m not hungry now.” The muffin tumbled off, the cake breaking in two. “You’ll have to clean it up later. You must do my hair before my guests arrive.”

  Edna lifted the brush off the vanity, forcing herself to keep from frowning. Beggars would’ve done almost anything for a bite of that muffin. “Yes, my lady.”