The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom by Leah Cutter Read Free Book Online Page B

for lunch. He
thought about blasting his music loudly—something he could never do
around his sister and mother—but the quiet settled over him, soothed him.
    Instead, Dale went to his room to work. First he laid the
plastic down on the floor, sighing again at the necessity. At least he had
floor space and could work in his room, unlike Nora, whose room always looked
like a tornado had just struck. She kept everything out in piles, never putting
things away.
    From the toolbox, Dale pulled out the machine. He hadn’t
found a phosphorus compartment yet. The smaller screwdriver set Ms. Anderson
had given him turned out to be handy, though the three-prong-headed screws
still gave him problems. He also got out his notebook. Nora had personalized it
for him, burning the leather binder in a pattern of clouds and gears. Dale didn’t
keep something silly like a diary in it, but he did take notes about the
projects he worked on.
    Dale drew a quick sketch of the placement of the wires
connecting the gears. He probably would remember, but he wanted to be sure. He
didn’t quite understand their function. Were they part of the primary
mechanism, or the backup? He wished yet again that he had friends here, people
he could talk with about clockwork. Or anything else.
    The sound of crunching along the gravel road wafted through
the quiet afternoon. Dale waited, listening. He didn’t hear a door opening or
his mom—Mr. Patterson must have left.
    Just as Dale started unhooking the small gears from the main
works, he heard a knock on the front door. Strange. He hadn’t heard another
car.
    Wary, Dale peeked out the window next to the front door. Two
kids stood on the far side of the road, staring at the house. They didn’t wear
any shirts, just some kind of weird red paint and shorts. Maybe they were
playing doorbell ditch.
    One lifted a brass-colored sphere, about the size of a
whiffle ball. The kid twisted the top in one direction while turning the bottom
in the other.
    Even in the bright daylight, Dale recognized the cool blue-phosphorus
glow, the same as from the odd machine in his room.
    Without thinking, Dale threw the door open. The two kids
stared at him. “Hey,” Dale called out. He slowly crossed the threshold and
walked toward them. “What is that?” he asked. As he drew closer, he realized
the two halves weren’t solid: gradated wheels spinning in different directions
made up each.
    The blue light flashed brightly in Dale’s eyes, then
everything went dark.
    ***
    Kostya sat in the deep grass
across the road from the human Tinker’s house, waiting. He kept as still as
possible. The sturdy house wasn’t bad for a human dwelling, he decided. At
least it only had one level. Solid brown wood covered the walls. It sat in the
open, though, far too exposed for the dwarf.
    An older woman with dark hair and too-pale skin left the
house at midday, walking up the road. Kostya assumed
that was the mother. She carried her frailty proudly, as delicate as a jeweled
songbird.
    Kostya considered going into the
house and mapping out all the escape routes before she came back. However,
before he could leave his post, three humans came down the road—the
mother and the two children: the Maker and the Tinker.
    The Maker closely resembled her mother—dark hair that
grew in wild waves down her back, equally dark eyes. However, her pale skin
didn’t represent sickness; rather, it expressed an irrepressible light that
glowed deep inside her.
    The Tinker also shone in the sunlight, hair practically
bleached white. He was balanced with a darkness, clouds boiling within.
    After a while, the boy and girl left, leaving the mother
inside. Kostya followed them silently to the top of
the trail leading down to the cove. They paid no attention to their
surroundings. Kostya could have walked behind them in
plain sight and they wouldn’t have noticed.
    Kostya left them to their play and
went back to his spot to plan and wait. If the boy and girl were