His Clockwork Canary

CHAPTER 23

Willie would not have believed herself capable of a single bite. Between the troubling article in the Times, her ugly bout with prejudice, and her anxiety regarding her father’s “interview,” her appetite had taken a severe thrashing. Yet there had been something soothing about Simon and Phin’s purchasing food and making themselves at home in her father’s cluttered kitchen. They’d even charmed Michael Goodenough by inquiring about his collection of modern cookware, allowing him to demonstrate his pop-up toaster, and indulging him by drinking the fruits and vegetables he’d whipped into a disgusting liquid via his electrified blenderizer.

Their natural curiosity regarding his futuristic collection had fed into her father’s obsession with his wife’s birth century and therefore had naturally led to talk about Michelle Goodenough herself. Soon Willie realized that there was no need to fret over posing formal questions. If she simply went with the flow, she could no doubt learn much about her mother in casual conversation. It had been years since she’d seen her father so at ease and engaged. And she had Simon and Phin to thank for it.

“I find it utterly fascinating that your wife worked for NASA,” Simon said as he bit off a corner of burned toast. “My family has a long history of tinkering with fantastical flight. In fact my father started building a moonship several months ago. Named it Apollo in honor of the Mod rockets. To think Mrs. Goodenough worked for the team that put a man on the moon.”

“Ah, yes,” Michael said. “An amazing feat and one that Michelle was ultimately proud of. That was in 1969 just before the Peace Rebels came back in time. Michelle left NASA in 1967 after a beastly accident that took the lives of three spacemen. She never got over that horrifying fire. If only they had been Houdini, she once said. Then they would have escaped in time.”

“Houdini?” Willie’s fork paused midair. She remembered her mother saying an accident had caused her to leave NASA, but there had been no mention of Houdini.

“Harry Houdini,” he expanded whilst scooping up the last of his scrambled eggs. “You know. The famous escape artist. Although, wait. I don’t believe he’s famous yet.” He chewed his eggs, brow scrunched in thought. “No. That’s right. He was born of our century, but gained global fame after the turn of the century, so of course you don’t know of him yet. Not to mention Houdini was his stage name. He goes by another name now. I think. What year is this?”

“It’s 1887, sir,” Simon said.

“More eggs?” Phin asked, trying to keep the conversation light and rolling.

“No, thank you . . . What was your name?”

“Phin, sir. Phineas Bourdain.”

“That’s right.” He pointed his fork at Simon. “And you?”

Willie cringed. It was happening. Confusing days and years. Forgetting names and places.

However, Simon stayed calm, sipped his god-awful drip-o-matic coffee, and reminded her father of his name.

“Ah, yes. The chap who married my daughter. Could I have some more eggs?” he asked Phin, then turned back to Simon. “It’s not legal, you know.”

“It’s binding to us,” Simon said, and Willie felt her heart glow.

“Bully for you!” Michael banged a fist to the table. “Bully, I say. You know, in Michelle’s time a lot of couples lived in sin. Make love, not war. You’ll be happier for it.”

Phin coughed into his hand.

Willie’s cheeks burned.

“Your eggs, sir,” Phin said, frying pan at the ready.

Michael waved him off. “I’m full, thank you. Darcy, eh?” He narrowed his eyes on Simon. “I say, you aren’t related to Briscoe Darcy, are you?”

“Distant cousin.”

“Michelle met him, you know. She was in charge of security.”

“Of the time machine?” Simon asked.

“No,” Willie said. “Of the Time Voyager himself. Right, Daddy?” She caught Simon’s gaze and noted his surprise. She realized suddenly that they’d never discussed any ties between her mother and his cousin. Their focus had been on the Briscoe Bus clockwork propulsion engine.

“You mustn’t hold that against your mother-in-law,” Michael said to Simon. “She was only doing her job. She was in charge of security and Briscoe was a national treasure, of sorts. He traveled through time, jumped dimensions. Gadzooks! No wonder they wanted to pick the man’s brain.”

“Who?” Simon asked.

“The agency Michelle worked for.”

“And what agency was that?” Willie asked. “I don’t recall.” In fact she never knew. Only that it was a British firm.

Michael held a shushing finger to his lips. “Top secret, that.”

“More coffee?” Phin asked, filling Michael’s cup before the man could decide. “I’m thinking a secret branch of the Metropolitan Police,” Phin prompted.

“No,” Simon said. “Mrs. Goodenough was at the top of her craft. National level, I’d wager. There was mention of an elite agency in the Book of Mods. MI5?”

“She went by Agent Price then,” Michael said, looking off as though somewhere else. “And she worked for the best.”

“The Mechanics,” Willie whispered.

Michael held up another shushing finger, then looked to Phin. “Are there any more eggs?”

Willie’s pulse raced with a surge of relief and excitement. She and Wesley had been right. Their mother had worked for Her Majesty’s Mechanics. Although in the twentieth century, not this century. Not everything had been a lie. Her mind scrambled, trying to connect the dots of her father’s scattered disclosures. She glanced across the table at Simon. He looked almost as far away as her father. Gads.

“According to the preachings of the Peace Rebels,” Simon ventured whilst Phin dished out more scrambled eggs, “the time machine was secured and locked away by the British government whilst Briscoe escaped and disappeared.”

“Quite the opposite, dear boy. That was the brilliance of my Michelle. What did you add to these eggs, Phineas? The flavor is most pleasing. I must know.”

Rigid now, Simon pushed out of his chair. “Excuse me.”

Phin traded a look with Willie, then tried to distract her father with his secret recipe whilst she hurried after Simon. By the time she caught up to him, he was outside in the rear garden. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I have to contact my brother.”

Her mouth went dry as he pulled some sort of palm-sized device from his pocket, much like the one Strangelove had given her. Had he found her telecommunicator? But no. This device was different. “What is that?” she asked as he toggled a switch.

He warded her off with a raised hand and turned his back. “Jules?”

She heard a squeal and then static. Then Simon calling his brother again, followed by more static.

“Damnation.” His shoulders slumped as he slid the device back into his pocket. He jammed a hand through his hair, making it stand every which way. “He couldn’t have made the leap already. It’s too soon.”

“What leap? What . . .” Heart pounding, she moved around and faced him. “What are you talking about, Simon?”

“My brother traveled to Australia to meet with Professor Merriweather.”

“Maximus Merriweather? The Peace Rebels’ genius scientist?”

He nodded. “Jules was convinced that Merriweather has the knowledge and expertise to build him a time machine, a machine that would transport him into the future. To 1969, to be exact.”

Time travel. Exactly what the Peace Rebels had meant to prevent by destroying the Briscoe Bus. At least that’s what they’d preached. Meanwhile the Houdinians had absconded with the most vital mechanism. Willie’s brain hurt trying to make sense of it all. Jules seriously intended to breach 1969? “For what purpose?”

“To obtain the Time Voyager’s original clockwork propulsion engine and to bring it back to our time.”

“But why?”

“In order to win the jubilee prize. To restore honor to the Darcy name. To secure our family’s future and fortune. Christ.”

Unsettled by his panic, she reached up and palmed the sides of his face. Even though her right shoulder screamed, she ignored the pain. “Talk to me, Simon.”

“My brother is risking his life to leap into the future, to retrieve something that isn’t there. Don’t you understand, Willie? The Peace Rebels didn’t re-create Briscoe’s design. They stole the original clockwork propulsion engine. The engine that your mother and the other two Houdinians pinched from the Briscoe Bus, the engine they hid and protected all these years, is the engine. The Time Voyager’s engine. There is only one.”

Willie held Simon’s gaze, though her mind raced in several directions. “The depth of intrigue is beyond my immediate comprehension. But we’ll sort this out. It would seem destiny brought us together for some grand purpose, Mr. Darcy.”

He smiled at that, a pained smile, but at least she’d chased away some of the tension. He placed his hands over hers, saying, “How romantic, Mrs. Darcy,” then leaned in for a kiss.

Probably her imagination, but she’d swear she’d felt a merging of souls and purpose as their lips parted and their tongues met. Aye. Surely her cross-dimensional, love-struck imagination.

• • •

To think that he’d once thought his life in London exhilarating. Simon had felt more alive in the past two days—more challenged, more aware, more emotionally invested—than in any given moment in the last ten years. For once, the world did not revolve around his problems, his projects, his race for glory. In the last three hours alone his eyes had been opened and his focus turned outward.

The outrageous and unacceptable treatment of his wife by an establishment that barred her kind had seeped into his brain, forever changing his status as a passive bystander. Not that he had ever approved of intolerance or prejudice in any form, but, to date, he’d done nothing viable to advocate the rights of Freaks. That would change.

He had felt good about warming Mr. Goodenough’s house by stocking his hearths and for establishing a friendly relationship even though he wasn’t convinced the man would remember him upon their next visit. Indeed, Michael Goodenough’s mind worked in mysterious ways. His inability to accept his wife’s absence chained him to the past. Her past, their past. Making sense of his ramblings was like reading every other chapter of a book. The overall story was pitted with holes, leaving it to the reader to puzzle the missing parts. As it happened, Simon was a fan of working puzzles. Part of what had drawn him to being an engineer. In kind, Willie’s journalistic experience spoke of an inquisitive and analytic mind. Between the two of them and Phin, bolstered by Simon’s suspicion that Willie had time-traced her father on the sly, Simon was confident they would conquer the mystery of the Houdinians and the clockwork propulsion engine. Somehow Simon would make things right for his family and Willie’s family whilst acting in the best interest of mankind. He could think of no finer tribute to his father.

As for his brother . . . not wanting to unnecessarily compromise Jules’s position in HMM, Simon had decided to give it until the next morning before taking extreme measures. If he had not reached his brother by then, he would consider the situation an emergency and contact the only other Mechanic he knew. He’d ferret out the secret headquarters and storm the doors if he had to, whatever it took to cover his brother’s arse.

Simon hadn’t realized how intensely quiet the walk from Goodenough’s cottage back to the Flying Cloud had been until Phin broke the silence.

“A most invigorating day,” the aviator said as they boarded the grounded ship. “I can only imagine what lies ahead.”

“I feel as though we’ve been given all or most of the pieces,” Willie said. “Working together, perhaps we can solve the puzzle.”

“Although some of us possess more pieces than others.” Simon grasped Willie’s elbow and brought her to a stop just shy of the cockpit. “You time-traced your father.”

Phin turned, brows raised in surprise. “She did?”

“When she hugged him good-bye.”

“But the embrace lasted no longer than seconds,” Phin said.

“A few seconds in reality can equate to a few hours in one’s memory,” Simon said. “Right, sweetheart?”

Even though her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparked with defiance. “Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t calculated. Upon leaving, I was so overcome. . . . You don’t understand. He hasn’t been that warm and engaged in years. Even though he mostly talked about Mother and her century, he was connecting with me. With us. The hug was spontaneous and when he didn’t push me away . . .” Her throat caught. “Because of my tracing quirk, it’s been so very long since he allowed any sort of physical contact.”

“So you hugged,” Phin said, “and it just happened? Suddenly you were in a memory? I thought you had to focus.”

“I’d been focused,” she said. “For over two hours. Intently focused. On my father and his every word and expression. I suppose I was primed.” She looked now to Simon. “How did you know? When it happens that fast, no one’s the wiser.”

“I’m not sure. Sensed it, I suppose.” Torn between curious and perturbed, Simon shook his head. “He didn’t want that, Willie. You in his memories.”

Her cheeks flushed brighter. “I know. But as I said, it wasn’t on purpose and he didn’t feel me in there. He doesn’t know. So no harm done, aye?”

Something ugly stirred within Simon. “If you truly believe that, then you and I have very different views on trust.”

She hugged herself and looked away. “You’re trying to make me feel guilty for something I didn’t intend.”

“You could have pulled away the moment you realized what was happening.”

“Except it happened too fast and then I was stunned for a moment. Stunned by what I saw, heard. For what it’s worth, I did break the connection sooner than I wanted. I did, do feel remorse for invading Daddy’s privacy.” She chewed her lower lip, met his gaze. “Are you happy now?”

“Not precisely.” But her tormented gaze somewhat cooled his temper. It had been a trying day, a volatile day. As a gesture of peace, he brushed a thumb over her cheek and stated another concern that had set him off. “You didn’t have a lifeline, Willie. If you’d gotten lost in there, distracted—”

“But she didn’t,” Phin said reasonably, reminding them of his presence. “At the risk of stirring things up more, since the deed is done, as it were, I’d like to know if she learned anything of consequence.”

Phin was being a diplomat and a pragmatist and Simon had to admit he, too, was curious. He felt hypocritical, but tried to focus on the greater good. “Did you?”

Her eyes widened. “There’s a traitor amongst them.”

“Who? The Houdinians?”

“I think so. I need to rethink the memory. Sort things out. My father’s memories were like a twisted collage.”

“I can imagine.” And the thought of her getting lost in those memories, any memories, caught up in some sort of psychic limbo, chilled Simon to the bone.

“Right, then,” Phin said. “Let’s go below. Work the puzzle until we can determine our next move. I don’t know about you, but I could use some real coffee. Protect me from that drip-o-matic swill of the future.” Mumbling on, he took the lead, expecting them to follow.

“You go on,” Simon said to Willie. “I want to try Jules one more time.”

Willie slipped into his arms, eviscerating the lingering tension between them. “Being his twin, don’t you think you would feel something in your stomach, in your spirit, if something was terribly wrong?”

“Yes. I do believe I would. I felt it when he was horribly injured in the war, even though we were miles apart.” Simon was feeling several things just now, but no ominous portent. He hooked her hair behind her ears. “Thank you for reminding me of that.”

She smiled up at him, though the smile was troubled. “I do believe we’ve stepped into a monumental mess, Simon.”

He couldn’t argue that, and though this was monumental, being steeped in larger-than-life drama was all too familiar. “All part of being a Darcy.”