Mainspring by Jay Lake Read Free Book Online Page A

world had already come to ruin. He sat on the edge of a boardwalk and tried to remember his father. Only the sad, defeated face of Franklin Bodean would come to mind, as his master had looked when turning Hethor out.
    LE ROY’S “presently” turned into the better part of two hours. Hethor’s sense of time was always with him, always accurate. Several times he considered simply walking away, following the road east and north, but the long, slow prospect made his feet ache even more. Hethor chose to continue waiting. His journey so far had been difficult, but not nearly so bad as it might have been. The hand of Librarian Childress had reached far, perhaps.

    He sent a silent prayer of thanks to God, Gabriel, and the secret company of librarians.
    The old moon was nearly gone, and gave little enough light. Eventually a wagon—an odd, oblong thing shiny even in the dark of the evening—came for him. As it stopped, smelling of sawdust and polishing oils, Hethor realized his next conveyance was a hearse straight from the manufactory.
    â€œCome on, then,” said a boy, voice piping high. “If you’re old Le Roy’s friend in need of a ride, here’s your coach-and-four.”
    It was more of a coach-and-two, but Hethor smiled at the joke. “Never been on one of these,” he said apologetically, pulling himself up the iron step to the driver’s bench. It smelled of leather, but crinkled when he sat.
    â€œI should hope you haven’t,” said the boy. “Most people make this journey only once. Mind the newsprint, now. Protects the seat. She’s newly built, and I’m to deliver her to Foxboro over Massachusetts way two days hence.”
    That was when Hethor realized that the boy was a young woman. Not from her voice, nor her clothes, which were lumpy and boyish enough as far he could tell in the dark, but something in her smell and the way she sat with the reins in hand, knees too close together and leaning forward not quite the right way.
    A girl. There weren’t any girls in Hethor’s life, not at Master Bodean’s, not at New Haven Latin. And here he was alone in the dark … . What was he supposed to do? Hethor could feel his face flushing hot and red, and was profoundly glad of the shadows.
    â€œI … I …” He was lost for words.
    â€œDon’t worry. Don’t scratch up the lacquer or the brightwork and you’ll be fine. Le Roy slipped me a pound note for your vittles on the way, so you’ll eat in style. English pound at that, not one of our American pounds.”
    Le Roy slipped her a pound note? Hidden eyes were watching him. Librarian Childress had given him an unexpected gift, with the password of the albino toucan. It
had called forth great favor by the fire in Hartford. Who were these people, farmers and librarians and—apparently—a coach girl?
    â€œI’m Darby, by the way.”
    Her voice was nice. Once he knew it wasn’t a boy’s voice, it didn’t sound sissy any more. She was a girl … the kind of person a boy could spoon with if he was very lucky. She might even be …
    That vague, pleasant line of thought broke off as his common sense awoke. Darby, a girl, was driving! Hethor wanted to grab the reins from her, save the two of them from hurtling into the nearest ditch as always happened when some man was foolish enough to let a woman take to the road. But part of him remembered the cool competence of Librarian Childress.
    Who seemed to be watching over him even now, in the form of Darby’s English pound note.
    Perhaps he was as wrong about women as Pryce and Faubus had been about him. Except that women were flighty, hysterical, unreliable—they had their monthlies. Every boy was warned of that, in whispered rumor if not in the classroom. It was simple biology, not an artifice of society like the snobbery that had condemned Hethor in the eyes of Pryce.
    The same