Diana Pho - Steampunk World

I listened and did as I was supposed to do.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, Aunt Bertha. It shall be as you wish.”

“Well,” Aunt Bertha said. “A woman must die when a woman must die.”

She pressed a hand to her bosom, coughed once, twice, and then she was gone.

The light here is unlike light anywhere else. The ancestral home is just a short distance from the sea and if you get tired of the sea, you can go further inland to where the land stretches out as far as the eye can see.

We don’t have to till the land ourselves. That’s not what she made us for. But the farmers bring in a seasonal tribute of rice and vegetables in lieu of rent and it’s our task to ensure they’re sent off to the estate manager who sells them at a profit for the family in Manila.

There’s no reason for them to take the crossing and come to where we are. No reason at all.

Dear Lina , the letter read. We'll be there on the fifteenth of the month.

One drawback of living here was that the mail arrived slower than elsewhere. Today was the fifteenth of the month.

It was my task to wind up the others daily and set them to work. The letter sent me into a flurry of activity. We couldn’t allow the family to sleep in rooms that smelled of dust and mold.

I looked out the window and watched for the dust cloud that would herald their arrival. Would they demand the selling off of the land now? Would they want me to vacate the ancestral home? And what about Aunt Bertha’s final project?

I pocketed my anxiety, folded the cloth over the painting I was working on and went to ensure that the work was done. Rooms needed to be aired, beds needed turning and sheets had to be changed.

There was no need for worry. Every nook and cranny of the old house was shiny and clean. There was not even the slightest hint of a cobweb.

Still, another passage of the cleaning cloth never hurt anyone.

Noise heralded their approach. They were travelling in a painted coach and even the layer of dust couldn’t dull the shine of the metal horses that pulled them. They quivered and stamped the ground with their shining hooves, steam rose up from their bodies and their mechanical eyes shivered open and shut.

“Ah, here she is,” Cousin Emma said.

I reached out my arms and caught her as she sprang from the carriage.

“Lina dear, won’t you come with us to the city? We'll take good care of you there, promise.”

I stared at her in surprise.

“Oh stop it,” Auntie Lily said. “Don’t overwhelm the poor thing. Don’t you see she’s quite devastated at the loss of Bertha.”

I blinked.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I can’t leave Carrascal.”

“Of course,” Cousin Emma said. “Of course, you'll stay here, Lina dear. It wasn’t our intention to kick you out. Besides, if you leave who would take care of the old house. If you wish to stay, you must stay.”

It’s not that I don’t want to move to the city, but this is the only home we've ever known. No matter how the family clicks and moans about Aunt Bertha’s eccentric ways, no matter that they moan about the odd placement of the rooms, the slanting walls and geometric windows, we helped make this house according to Aunt Bertha’s vision.

“Martha,” I said. “I hope you’ve wound up the worlds in the Universum.”

“The Universum?” Cousin Emma said.

“It’s one of Aunt Bertha’s projects,” I replied.

“I want to see,” Cousin Emma said. And a chorus of voices joined in with hers as the younger cousins clamored to see what they’d never cared to see when Aunt Bertha was still here.

“Martha,” I said. “You lead the way.”

I listened to the sound of their voices. Martha wouldn’t be able to answer their questions, but I could.

I rested my hand on the brass telescope that had come to us all the way from Europe. Would they even appreciate how Aunt Bertha had tried to capture worlds she could only see through its powerful lens?

I watched them peer at the bell jars. Their eyes alight with curiosity. If you looked closely, you could see gears grinding and turning. Tiny little spheres orbited shining poles of brass, brass disks twirled and turned on their axes; round and round they went until their mechanisms wound down and Martha had to wind them up again.

“What else is here?” They asked. “What else?”

At that moment, a crescendo sounded from the organ room. Giggling and laughing, they went in search of the sound. They would find Sergio of course, and the room with long pipes built into it. When Aunt Bertha was alive, she would bring that organ to life and make so much sound the entire house would quake.

They were so distracted by everything they saw, they never thought to explore the basement. It was a relief. After all, it was where we kept the final project.

Yours to finish , Aunt Bertha had said to me.

Two of the cousins stayed after the others left.

Every day, Fermi and Ana walked down to the sea together. I watched them as they ran about and played.

When they came home, they trailed sea water and sand all over the narra floor.

“You're so good to us, Lina,” Fermi said.

I made an attempt to capture the light around them. The blue and rose of their skirts, the pale cream of their panuelos, the midnight of their hair blending into each other—all in vain.

If I could assemble a machine from bits of metal and screws, would I be able to make something that would capture their light as I could not do?

I laid down my brush and looked out into the distance. I could feel the thrumming in my chest. It made a steady sound, a reminder of the promise I had given to Aunt Bertha on her deathbed. Maybe I wasn’t made to be a painter. Maybe I was really made to be something else.

It was the steady drone that roused me.

I walked to the window and looked out.

There was this huge thing floating above us. It was shaped like a whale and its bulk blocked out all sight of the sun. I had seen it in one of Aunt Bertha’s books, but I never thought I’d see one in Carrascal.

Fermi and Ana stood behind me, still dressed in their nightclothes, hands clutching each other.

“Lina,” Fermi said. “What’s out there?”

“I believe it’s a zeppelin,” I said.

Ana’s eyes opened wide.

“No,” she said. “It can’t be. It can’t be.”

“Ana,” Fermi said.

But Ana was running away from us, her feet slipping and sliding on the smooth floor. She rounded the corner that led to the bedrooms. We heard the bang of the door and the click of a lock.

Fermi’s face wore a shadow. Gone was the light of the past days.

“It couldn’t last forever,” Fermi said.

Her voice broke and I didn’t know what else to do, so I opened my arms and let her cry.

There was no more running down to the sea.

I wound up the automatons and we all went to work. No matter what went on outdoors, someone still had to tend to the plants in the hothouse. Worlds needed to be wound up, the organ pipes needed cleaning and then there was the matter of Aunt Bertha’s final project.

It stood in the workshop—a stranded skeleton that looked nothing like the bird Aunt Bertha compared it to. Its slender frame was formed from bowed copper rods, and its sides were hemmed with strips of balsa wood. We still had to stretch the canvas cover over it. Maybe then it would look like something meant for flight.

“Lina,” Fermi said. “What are you all doing down here?”

“Working,” I said.

She came downstairs.

“Amazing,” she said.

She walked around the frame, her hands reaching out but not quite touching.

“You made this?” She said.

“It’s Aunt Bertha’s project,” I replied. “We only put it together.”