Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

A number of emotions tried to push their way into Alice’s head and heart-fear, relief, pride, anger-but she forced herself to stay focused on the task at hand. Reach safe distance from the Gontas. Guide the elephant safely through the street. Bring the children back to the circus. Would the Gontas pursue? Alice had no idea. Right now, she had to get back to the circus, where there was help.

“Alice!” Gavin called from above. “Alice!”

His voice brought back the wave of sentiment. She ignored it, and him. Now that he was safe, she needed to deal with practical matters. Once they were back at the circus, they could talk. The elephant ran.

“Madam. Madam. Madam.”

“Alice!” Gavin shouted again.

The journey was its own version of hell. Alice was terrified the Gontas were following, and she didn’t dare slow down, but neither did she want to trample anyone, and the dirty, narrow streets were difficult to navigate. Thank God she knew where she was going. People and traffic leaped out of the elephant’s way, some meekly, others with angry shouts. The elephant’s feet thudded unevenly on the cobblestones. Alice turned it one way, then another, always heading for the Dnepro River and the circus. The circus became a goal unto itself, a haven she had to reach at all costs.

The elephant slowed, lurching more and more. A loud hissing started in one of the little boilers inside its chest. But Alice could see the Tilt between the buildings.

“Madam. Madam. Madam.”

And then they were there. The circus was in something of a mess. People dashed in a number of directions, working and shouting and unhitching horses from wagons. Animals bellowed and screeched in their cages. And then Alice remembered that they had been rudely dismissed from the Gonta-Zalizniak house and must have only just returned.

“Alice!” Gavin called again. “God, Alice. Get up here!”

This time Alice listened. She quickly climbed up to the gondola, cursing the difficulty of doing so in a skirt. Simon helped her in. Feng stood in one corner of the gondola, his scarred face impassive, Kemp’s head at his feet. Nine of the children lay or sat on the floor, some of them crying softly, most of them numb. Gavin knelt, cradling the tenth, the little girl in the ragged gray dress. It was the girl Alice had first cured. Gavin’s jaw was trembling, and then Alice saw that the front of the girl’s dress was stained with blood. All the strength went out of her and she dropped to the floor of the gondola beside the child.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no. Is she-?”

“Dead,” Simon said. “Rifle fire hit her when you went back.”

Guilt and horror crushed Alice to the gondola floor. Tears welled in her eyes and her throat closed. She took the little body from Simon and cradled it. The little girl’s body lay in her arms like a warm rag doll. Her mouth lolled open. Alice wept. This child would never see her parents or play house or bite a slice of bread or kiss a boy or breathe spring air. All her hopes and memories had vanished like fog in sunlight, as if they had never existed. A month ago, when she had eaten breakfast with her family, she’d had no idea that one day her corpse would lay in the arms of a stranger on the back of a mechanical monster. And it was Alice’s doing. Alice wished desperately that she could change places with her, but God was never so kind.

Gavin touched her shoulder and Alice wanted to bury herself in his arms, but she wouldn’t let herself. What solace did this girl have? Her family?

“You couldn’t let go,” Simon said in a flat voice. “She died because you went back for Gavin.”

“Madam. Madam. Madam.”

“Simon,” Gavin said dangerously, “be-”

The words landed on her like stones. “No. He’s right. I’m so sorry. She died because of me.”

“You’re not being fair to yourself, Alice,” Gavin told her quietly. “The Cossacks gave her the clockwork plague, and if you hadn’t stepped in-”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.” Alice wiped her eyes. “Damn it. There’s too much to do. We need to take care of the other children and we need to destroy that generator.”

“Alice-,” Gavin began.

“Not now, Gavin.” She got up, still holding the girl’s body. The other children stared, both fearful and uncertain. “Feng, get the children down to the ground, please. Simon, help him.”

When the surviving children were safe on the ground, Alice climbed down herself, the girl’s body slung over her shoulder. She refused to let Gavin take it down for her. Blood smeared Alice’s blouse. Disorder continued to simmer through the circus and a curious crowd had gathered to watch, though as before they stayed outside the marked boundaries. Just as Alice reached the ground, Dodd trotted up to them, his collar undone and his hat askew. He was so agitated, he didn’t even notice Simon and Feng.

“What the hell did you do?” he demanded. “Jesus and God and Mary. Everything was fine until you got involved.”

“What do you mean?” Gavin asked.

“Ivana threw us out, and without paying me the rest of what she promised,” Dodd growled. “And what the bloody hell happened to the elephant? What happened to you?”

“It’s complicated,” Gavin said. He shot a glance over his shoulder at the streets leading back to the Gonta-Zalizniak house. “The short version of the story is that Ivana Gonta captured Feng and all these children. We had to rescue them, but we found out it was all a trick to… Well, never mind.”

He wet his lips. Alice understood his nervousness. Even as they spoke, the Gonta-Zalizniaks were pouring paraffin oil into their deadly mechanicals and moving them up from underground.

“Look,” he finished, “we have to get out of here. All of us. You, too. The whole circus.”

“I don’t understand.” Dodd looked puzzled.

Gavin looked ready to shake him. “Weren’t you listening ? The whole thing-the invitation to perform, Ivana pretending to want you there-was just a trick to get me and Alice into that house. Except we escaped, and now they’re angry. They’re going to destroy the circus in revenge, and they’re on the way right now.”

Dodd stared, then turned and bellowed, “ Scarper! Now, now, now ! Scarper! Scarper!”

The word rippled through the circus. At first there was a sense of disbelief. The Kalakos Circus was enormous and well respected, not some gypsy sideshow, and most of the performers hadn’t been run out of a town in a dozen years or more. The idea that it could happen now caught them off guard. Once it sank in that the order was real, the general disorder from before blew into full-blown chaos as people tried to gather family, snatch belongings, and decide whether or not to leave beloved animals-both living and mechanical-behind.

Dodd started to run off, but Gavin caught his arm. “We need to find Harry. He speaks Ukrainian, and he can help us find the children’s-”

“I don’t know where Harry is,” Dodd snapped. “I’m glad you got these children out of the Gontas’ house, really I am, but right now I’m more worried that my own people will end up in it.”

“Why don’t you put everyone on the train? It’s faster,” Gavin asked.

“The boilers are stone cold,” Dodd snapped. “We’d never get everything heated up in time. Though I’m going to try, for the sake of the animals. Everyone else will have to run on foot or horseback and hope for the best. Maybe if we scatter in different directions, the Cossacks won’t catch many of us. Oh!” He put his hands to his head. “Charlie! He can’t run! Linda will have to hitch up her wagon. I have to find Nathan. Perhaps he can help her.”

“Good heavens.” Alice’s knees felt weak and she leaned against the elephant’s pitted side with the dead girl in her arms. The elephant felt uncomfortably warm, and it sighed steam. This was too much to take in. “I’m sorry, Dodd. I didn’t know this would happen.”