Free The Peculiars by Maureen Doyle McQuerry Page B

and looked at Lena skeptically, as if she blamed the girl for this disruptionto her household routine. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Beasley?”
    “No, Leticia, this is more than enough. But would you ask your husband to check the water levels of the Aeolipile?”
    She nodded and hurried off.
    “Jimson also showed me how you are converting water to steam using solar power. Is that the Aeolipile?” Lena asked.
    “No, the Aeolipile is something else altogether. It’s sometimes referred to as a ‘Hero engine.’ It’s a demonstration of how steam can power a device. It’s a two-thousand-year-old invention and not very practical. But I’m hoping to modify it. The house is full of experiments.” Mr. Beasley leaned forward to pour them each a cup of tea. “Coal won’t be around forever. We’ll use it up eventually, just as we will oil. But steam—that’s the true wave of the future. What we need are more ways to generate steam power that don’t depend on resources that will disappear.”
    “But aren’t there coal mines all over Scree?” Lena tried to direct the conversation toward the land to the north.
    “Yes, right now Scree is full of coal. But it won’t be forever; it can’t be. So while we’re busy exploiting the land, someone needs to be researching the next step. That’s the problem with engineers. They can be shortsighted.”
    “Mr. Beasley has all kinds of inventions. I only showed you one.” Jimson lifted the top off a sandwich to inspect the filling inside. Chicken salad seemed to please him, because he took a hearty bite.
    “Steam will change lives, Lena,” Mr. Beasley continued. “For example, look what steam has contributed to the medical profession. We still struggle with believing only those things we can see. That’s why no one paid attention to Joseph Lister when he said that something called bacteria was killing patients and that we needed to use steam to sterilize medical equipment—even the sheets the patient has been lying in. This is a new age of science.”
    Jimson’s eyes never left Mr. Beasley’s face. “‘Science dogs his every footstep, meets him at every turn, and twines itself around his life.’ That was in a copy of
The Naturalist
magazine. Mr. Lockyer said it.”
    “See how fortunate I was to find Jimson?” Mr. Beasley beamed, and Jimson flushed. “But what brings you to Knoster, Miss Mattacascar?”
    Lena twined her own feet around the clawed feet of the reading chair and smoothed the wrinkles from her blue skirt. “I had hoped to go to Scree. I came prepared to hire a guide and buy provisions, but an unfortunate incident on the train—”
    “Her bag was snatched.”
    “Makes it more difficult now. I would still like to go to Scree after I’ve earned some money.” She looked up and found Mr. Beasley regarding her thoughtfully.
    “Why Scree?”
    She had thought out her explanation carefully. “I’ve always been interested in it, and my father had some business dealingsthere when I was younger. I guess I just want to see the place for myself.”
    “Scree is not a journey to be undertaken lightly. You’re right to want a guide and to count the cost of provisions. The land belongs to no one. That’s what our government claims, even though there have been indigenous people there for thousands of years. If we didn’t look at it as unclaimed land, we’d have a difficult time justifying our actions there.” His forehead creased with concentration and his painted eyebrows dove down to his nose.
    “Several people mentioned that you are an expert on Scree and might be the perfect guide,” Lena ventured.
    Jimson’s eyebrows shot up.
    “Whom have you been talking to?” Mr. Beasley’s voice grew more cautious.
    “I met a man named Milo by the pier, and I also talked to Margaret Flynn.” She was careful to omit mention of the marshal.
    Mr. Beasley’s mouth twitched as if he was about to smile. “Margaret Flynn was a fine guide in her day. She’s