Clockwork Firefly

Clockwork Firefly - Chapter One

The sky was a clear blue, cloudless and the hue of cornflowers from horizon to horizon. The sun a golden illumination high overhead, pouring down warmth and making the rippling waves of tropical blue-green shimmer, the occasional shadow slipping through the unearthly clarity. A sinuous black-bodied shark sliding serpentine in pursuit of an ever-shifting cloud that turned from a large dark blot to a hundred tiny points scurrying in all directions. In the shallows little fish fed from a dainty hand held just at the level of the water.

There came a noise, a hissing sort of sound, high-pitched and faint, but somehow very wrong, brought the owner of that hand to lift her head. Long strands of deep coppery brown hung down across her back and breasts. She dove forward, the sun glinting off of the aquamarine scales of her tail as she set herself zooming forward along the lagoon's edge to where the soft sand of the shore gave way to large iron gray rock at the island's edge, thick with ferns and wild trees. She drug herself up onto a flat stone at the water's edge, humming to herself as she ran her fingers through her hair, basking in the warmth of the sun against her flesh. Behind her, she could hear the rustle of wild beasts and birds set to flight as that hiss sounded again, louder this time. She turned quickly see a great black ape swinging through the vine draped branches his cry high pitched and sharp, a piercing sound akin like metal grinding upon metal, that made her dive off of her rock in fear.

THUMP!

She cracked open one eye to get her bearings. She lay with her cheek against the hard wood of her bedroom floor. Her legs had become twisted tightly in the sheets, which still were tucked in at the foot of her bed, which served as both blessing and curse. It had spared her from falling completely out of bed, but pulling herself up and extricating herself proved a little harder. As she lay half way out of the bed, another screech rose. Awake now, she recognized it as the brakes of a train. Not that unusual, but certainly it had taken her from a very pleasant dream.

A glance at the clock on the wall marked it had was thirty-seven minutes past three in the morning. Too early to rise for the day, too late to think she would easily fall back to sleep again. A glance toward the other bed, wondering if the noise had woke Hazel, but no, the form within was still slumbering. Curiosity brought her to the window, which allowed a very good view of the western horizon and the distant town. Not of where the train had gone though. To do so, she had to open it and lean out a bit. It was not often trains stopped here, especially at so late an hour.

She could see the white cloud of steam and hear the grind of metal, though this was less a sound of stopping, and more a sound of something starting up. A glowing cyan cloud spread out as the steam from the engine cooled and settled like fog across the scene, making it impossible to see anything clearly. More lights appeared, casting shadows in the mist of people and shapes far too large to be human milling about. She sat, perched on her windowsill, fascinated for several minutes. Eventually, the train's engine began to chug again and it pulled away and vanished into the darkness. The cloud settled. the lights fading, and the noises faded to a barely audible sound of hammer to steel.

"Mary Evelyn Mickleson! You come away from that window this instant!" her sister hissed from her side of their bedroom. She was sitting up in bed, her neatly bobbed hair tied beneath her kerchief to keep it from getting rumpled in the night. She held the blankets up against her neck. "What if someone should see you, hanging out there in your nightgown." she dropped her voice to a barely audible, but wholly disgusted whisper. "People will think you're some kind of... dollymop!"

Mary turned and gave her sister a look that spoke volumes of how ridiculous that accusation was. Who'd be out at this far from town, searching their house for whores doing business? She also wanted to point out that it would be a sadly desperate sort of drunkard who'd even consider her worth the propositioning, but she didn't want to start an argument. "Fine." She'd not mention what had drawn her attention, as it pleased her to have that for herself, if only for now.