Clarissa

The house now seemed like a machine that processed people in and out at the will of some hidden design. I was hurrying to escape it when I saw a young woman looking in a mirror, at the end of the hall: she was an exact copy of the woman from Toulouse.

I ignored the maid’s shouts and approached the ghost. She looked at me with wide, staring eyes. Not knowing what sort of sin I might be committing, I kissed the automaton’s icy lips. Her teeth cut my mouth, and I was aware of the metallic taste of blood. Hearing my cry, Kolm came with his fist raised, but he lowered it immediately when he saw it was only a girl.

“There’s nothing to fear. She’s not even real,” I said.

Blood suffused the woman’s cheeks, dispersing the illusion and the pallor.

“Are you sure I’m not a woman?”

She brought her mouth toward me, and I closed my eyes, expecting to be bit again but powerless to defend myself. Her lips rested softly on mine. If she was one of Von Knepper’s creatures, then Von Knepper was a god.

“This is the second time we’ve met,” I said, “but the first time, you weren’t there.”

She gestured for me to be quiet and led me by the hand to a room piled with broken mechanical toys: Dutch dolls with springs protruding from the head or chest, a blackbird in a gold cage, a soldier missing an arm. There was also a steam-powered wooden horse, a palace being circled by the sun and the moon, and a bronze Medusa that would open her eyes and toss her mane of snakes.

“Are you Von Knepper’s daughter?”

“You shouldn’t say his name. Call him Laghi; that’s what he’s known as in Paris.”

I asked about the young woman from Toulouse.

“Is she more beautiful than me? My father made her when I was a child: she was the future image of me. Then she was sold and passed from hand to hand; the purchasers always promised to keep her but never did, as if she were cursed. Three years ago, my father lost track of her. She’s made in my image and likeness, but while I grow old and imperceptibly wear out, she’ll never change.”

“If you two were rivals, you won. There’s nothing left of her. A secret mechanism under her tongue caused her to explode.”

“What kind of tears do you cry for a dead automaton? When my father finds out, he’ll cry real tears. He always loved her better; he thought she was more human.”

“I would never mistake a frigid automaton for a woman.”

“No? You don’t even know who I am.”

She brought her hand to my face, as if she were the one wondering about me.

“Don’t tell anyone you saw her. There are no automatons in France; there never were.”

“That’s what I want to speak to your father about.”

“He won’t see you. My father’s in grave danger. He doesn’t ever let me go out; I’m like a prisoner here.”

“Then I’ve come to set you free.”

If she accepted, what would I do with her? Where would I take her? Thankfully, she declined.

“The world out there is just another jail. At least in here it’s not rainy or cold.”

I looked at the dolls and mechanical toys all around us: everything was broken, nothing worked, and those very defects seemed to be contagious, so that soon we didn’t know what to say or how to move.