𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐏𝐒𝐎 | ᴍɪʟʟᴀʀᴅ ɴᴜʟʟɪɴɢꜱ

𝟑𝟎] 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

CHAPTER THIRTY ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ THE NANCIES FIGHT

I MIST HAVE DOZED OFF, because around midmorning I cracked my eye to discover something nudging my foot. I opened an eye to find a little humanoid figure trying to hide inside my shoe, but it had gotten tangled in my laces. It was all stiff limbed and awkward, half a hubcap tall, dressed in army fatigues. I watched it struggle to free itself for a moment and
then go rigid, a wind-up toy on its last wind.

I untied my shoe to extricate it and then turned it over, looking for the wind-up key, but I couldn't find one. Up close it was a strange, crude-looking thing, its head a stump of rounded clay, its face a smeared thumbprint.

"Bring him here!" someone called from across the yard. A boy sat waving at me from a tree stump at the edge of the woods.

Lacking any pressing engagements, I picked up the clay soldier and walked over. Arranged around the boy was a whole menagerie of wind-up men, staggering around like damaged robots. As I drew near, the one in my hands jerked to life again, squirming as if he were trying to get away. I put it with the others and wiped the clay on my pants.

"I'm Enoch," the boy said. "We've met."

"I guess we have," I replied.

"Sorry if he bothered you," he said, herding the one I'd returned back to the others. "They get ideas, see. Ain't properly trained yet. Only made 'em last week." He spoke with a slight cockney accent

Cadaverous black circles ringed his eyes like a raccoon, and his overalls—the same ones he'd worn in pictures I'd seen—were streaked with clay and dirt. Except for his pudgy face, he might've been a chimney sweep out of Mary Poppins.

"You made these?" I asked, impressed. "How?"

"They're homunculi," he replied. "Sometimes I put doll heads on 'em, but this time I was in a hurry and didn't bother."

"What's a homunculi?"

"More than one homunculus." He said it like it was something any idiot would know. "Some people think its homunculuses, but I think that sounds daft, don't you?"

"Definitely," I said. "The daftest."

The clay soldier I'd returned began wandering again. With his foot, Enoch nudged it back towards the group. They seemed to be going haywire, fighting with one another like excited atoms.

     "Fight, you nancies!" He commanded, which is when I realized they weren't simply bumping into one another, but hitting and kicking.

     The errant clay man wasn't interested in fighting, however, and when he began to totter away once more, Enoch snatched him up and snapped his legs.

"That's what happens to deserters in my army!" he cried, and tossed the crippled figure into the grass, where it writhed grotesquely as the others fell upon it.

"Do you treat all your toys that way?"

"Why?" he said. "Do you feel sorry for them?"

"I don't know. Should I?"

"No. They wouldn't be alive at all if it wasn't for me."

I laughed, and Enoch scowled at me. "What's so funny?"

"You made a joke."

"You are a bit thick, aren't you?" he said. "Look here." He grabbed one of the soldiers and stripped off its clothes. Then with both hands he cracked it down the middle and removed from its sticky chest a tiny, convulsing heart. The soldier instantly went limp. Enoch held the heart between his thumb and forefinger for me to see.

"It's from a mouse," he explained. "That's what I can do—take the life of one thing and give it to another, either clay like this or something that used to be alive but ain't anymore." He tucked the stilled heart into his overalls. "Soon as I figger out how to train 'em up proper, I'Il have a whole army like this. Only they'll be massive." And he raised an arm up over his head to show me just how massive. "What can you do?" he said.

"Me? Nothing, really. I mean, nothing special like you." I hoped I was hiding my lie.

"Pity," he replied. "Are you and Jacob going to come live with us anyway?" He didn't say it like he wanted me to, exactly; he just seemed curious.

"I don't know," I said. "I hadn't thought about it."

That was a lie, of course. I had thought about it, but more so in a day dreaming sort of way.

He looked at me suspiciously, "'But don't you want to?"

"I don't know yet."

Narrowing his eyes, he nodded slowly, as if he'd just figured me out. Then he leaned in and said under his breath, "Millard told you about Raid the Village, didn't he?"

"Raid the what?"

He looked away. "Oh, it's nothing. Just a game some of us play—"

I got the distinct feeling I was being set up. "He didn't tell me," I said.

Enoch scooted toward me on the stump. "I bet he didn't," he said. "I bet there's a lot of things about this place he wouldn't like you to know."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"Cause then you'll see it's not as great as everybody wants you to think, and you won't stay."

"What kinds of things?" I asked.

"Can't tell," he said, flashing me a devilish smile. "I could get in big trouble."

"Whatever," I said. "You brought it up."

I stood to go. "Wait!" he cried, grabbing my sleeve.

"Why should I if you're not going to tell me anything?"

He rubbed his chin judiciously. "It's true, I ain't allowed to say anything..... but I reckon I couldn't stop you if you was to go upstairs and have a look in the room at the end of the hall."

"Why?" I said. "What's in there?"

"My friend Victor. He wants to meet you. Go up and have a chat."

"Fine," I said. "I will."

I started toward the house and then heard Enoch whistle. He mimed running a hand at one the top of a door. The key, he mouthed.

"What do I need a key for if someone's in there?"

He turned away, pretending not to hear.