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Authors: Axel Blackwell
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silhouetted against a blacker background.
There was no moon tonight. No candles glimmered here, either. Only the boiler illuminated this space. Its red glow radiated across the floor and fanned upward, highlighting or darkening the paths and obstacles according to its own unreliable intentions.
The machines, great iron and copper beasts, hovered around her. They stood as mechanical behemoths, bodies without animation. Their stillness accentuated her isolation. In the daytime, these brutal engines had taken fingers, crushed limbs, had even eaten whole children. In the daytime, they roared and hissed, they shook and churned. Now, they watched in silence. Anna felt their eyes, and their hunger.
She knew she must hurry, but felt it somehow unwise to run past the sleeping machines. She did not want them to see her fear. To her right stood a machine that stamp-cut patterns from sheets of leather. Last year, Samuel Upton was loading the cutter when his sleeve snagged on the conveyor belt. Anna could still hear his screams as the conveyor pulled him into its maw, and her own screams when the belt dumped what was left of him into a bin on the far side.
Anna hurried past in a stiff walk. A pair of stitching machines loomed to her left. Their frenzies of needles had sampled the finger blood of every girl Anna knew. She wore several needle scars of her own. Two girls, a Beatrice that Anna did not know and a Sally she did know, had both lost lower arms due to infection from the stitchers’ bites. The needles now glimmered in the red ember glow of the boiler.
She reached the boiler just as the bell struck the first note of ten. The boiler stood as the god of the steam engines, floor to ceiling, fat as a Buddha, complex and baffling, austere. Heat and hell-colored light radiated from an open grill in its lower front panel. As Anna approached, she saw a small alcove cut into the wall behind the boiler. No light reached that space and she wished she had brought a candle. The bell continued to toll.
“Hello?” she said. “Hello, are you here?”
“Shhhh,” came the reply, then the whisper, “Come back here.”
Anna looked over her shoulder. The doors back to her hall were miles away, through thick darkness and a forest of steam powered killing machines. Whatever waited beyond the boiler must be better than staying here, better than having her body and mind gnawed down to a raw stump. Like Jeffery’s leg , she thought.
Jeffery had been one of the head boys, one of the cute head boys. He had been trying to clear a jam in the coal pulverizer that fed this boiler. He had kicked the jam loose, but he had kicked a bit too hard. With the blockage cleared, the pulverizer sprung to life again and pulverized his leg. He didn’t scream, he just turned white, then chuckled. Anna remembered that chuckle, it was far worse than Samuel Upton’s screams. Jeffery was alive when they carried him out of the factory, but Anna never saw him again.
She slipped into the alcove behind the boiler. No one waited there.
“Where are you?”
“I’m down below,” the whisper hissed through the broken end of a pipe. “I will tell you how to find me but you must listen carefully, act quickly and ask no questions.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“There is no way out of The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum unless someone lets you out,” the voice said. “The key will do nothing for you now. This house was built to be a fortress, and so it is. It has only four entrances and the sisters guard them all. All except the kitchen, but that one has a bell on it, and it is just outside the sister’s quarters. You must lure the sisters away.”
“Why are they so intent on keeping us here?”
“Oh,” purred the whisper, “they don’t post a guard on your account. But, I said no questions, time is short. Come to me and you will know everything.” The whisper softened. Anna heard in it the voice of the child who spoke to her in the cisterns.
There was no moon tonight. No candles glimmered here, either. Only the boiler illuminated this space. Its red glow radiated across the floor and fanned upward, highlighting or darkening the paths and obstacles according to its own unreliable intentions.
The machines, great iron and copper beasts, hovered around her. They stood as mechanical behemoths, bodies without animation. Their stillness accentuated her isolation. In the daytime, these brutal engines had taken fingers, crushed limbs, had even eaten whole children. In the daytime, they roared and hissed, they shook and churned. Now, they watched in silence. Anna felt their eyes, and their hunger.
She knew she must hurry, but felt it somehow unwise to run past the sleeping machines. She did not want them to see her fear. To her right stood a machine that stamp-cut patterns from sheets of leather. Last year, Samuel Upton was loading the cutter when his sleeve snagged on the conveyor belt. Anna could still hear his screams as the conveyor pulled him into its maw, and her own screams when the belt dumped what was left of him into a bin on the far side.
Anna hurried past in a stiff walk. A pair of stitching machines loomed to her left. Their frenzies of needles had sampled the finger blood of every girl Anna knew. She wore several needle scars of her own. Two girls, a Beatrice that Anna did not know and a Sally she did know, had both lost lower arms due to infection from the stitchers’ bites. The needles now glimmered in the red ember glow of the boiler.
She reached the boiler just as the bell struck the first note of ten. The boiler stood as the god of the steam engines, floor to ceiling, fat as a Buddha, complex and baffling, austere. Heat and hell-colored light radiated from an open grill in its lower front panel. As Anna approached, she saw a small alcove cut into the wall behind the boiler. No light reached that space and she wished she had brought a candle. The bell continued to toll.
“Hello?” she said. “Hello, are you here?”
“Shhhh,” came the reply, then the whisper, “Come back here.”
Anna looked over her shoulder. The doors back to her hall were miles away, through thick darkness and a forest of steam powered killing machines. Whatever waited beyond the boiler must be better than staying here, better than having her body and mind gnawed down to a raw stump. Like Jeffery’s leg , she thought.
Jeffery had been one of the head boys, one of the cute head boys. He had been trying to clear a jam in the coal pulverizer that fed this boiler. He had kicked the jam loose, but he had kicked a bit too hard. With the blockage cleared, the pulverizer sprung to life again and pulverized his leg. He didn’t scream, he just turned white, then chuckled. Anna remembered that chuckle, it was far worse than Samuel Upton’s screams. Jeffery was alive when they carried him out of the factory, but Anna never saw him again.
She slipped into the alcove behind the boiler. No one waited there.
“Where are you?”
“I’m down below,” the whisper hissed through the broken end of a pipe. “I will tell you how to find me but you must listen carefully, act quickly and ask no questions.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“There is no way out of The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum unless someone lets you out,” the voice said. “The key will do nothing for you now. This house was built to be a fortress, and so it is. It has only four entrances and the sisters guard them all. All except the kitchen, but that one has a bell on it, and it is just outside the sister’s quarters. You must lure the sisters away.”
“Why are they so intent on keeping us here?”
“Oh,” purred the whisper, “they don’t post a guard on your account. But, I said no questions, time is short. Come to me and you will know everything.” The whisper softened. Anna heard in it the voice of the child who spoke to her in the cisterns.
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