Free This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee Page B

pines. It was larger than most of the slender town houses along the main streets, with a yard behind it outlined by a trim fence. We stopped on the doorstep, and Geisler fumbled through his bag for a while before swearing under his breath. “Must have left my keys in the office,” he mumbled. “Never mind.” He knocked on the door, and I heard the sound echo through the house. I thought it strange he hadn’t asked Clémence for her set, but one look at her tight jaw told me she had yet to be trusted with her own.
    There was a shuffling creak from the other side; then, a moment later, the door was flung open. I gasped aloud before I could stop myself. On the threshold stood a man made entirely of gears and bars and metal plates, but walking, upright and of its own accord. Its eyes were glassy and its mouth a rigid, lipless rectangle that I couldn’t have fit a finger through. It stepped back from the door to let us in, each step stiff-kneed and ticking.
    Geisler walked past it as he stripped off his coat, and Clémence followed. I edged in after them, keeping my eyes on the clockwork thing , not certain exactly what it was or what it was about to do.
    The mechanical man pushed the door closed, then made a sharp turn and held out its arm. Geisler draped his fur-trimmed cloak over it. “Give it your coat,” he instructed me, nodding at something over my shoulder. I jumped as another metal man, identical to the first, rattled out of a doorway off the entrance hall carrying a dressing gown.
    Clémence smirked as I dodged out of its way. “Don’t fret, they don’t bite.” She pushed me forward into its path. “It’s just an automaton.”
    I looked from her to Geisler. “An automaton?” I repeated. “But it’s . . .”
    “Sentient?” Geisler offered. “Not to the capacity I would like.” He fed his arms through the sleeves of the dressing gown the automaton extended for him. “They have the mental faculties of a dull dog, and the ocular function as well. Only basic sight and auditory cues, but, like a dog, they can be trained, and they do learn over time. Not as fast as I’d like, but they do learn. By now they seem to know what I’m asking, though it took a hell of a long time to get them to this level.”
    “You made them?” I asked as the first automaton shuffled toward me, its arms outstretched. I thrust my coat forward, which satisfied the metal man into retreat.
    “Of course,” Geisler replied. “Though they are hardly the masterpiece I envisioned when I first considered giving life to clockwork. They have no capacity for originalor independent thought, no personality, and they couldn’t function without specific direction. Nothing compared to my original designs for the resurrected man.” He looked over at me, so quickly I almost thought I imagined it. When I didn’t say anything, he smiled. “Well then. Let me show you the house.”
    Geisler gave me a brief tour, poking his head into each room just long enough to allow me a quick glimpse. Somewhere on the first floor we lost Clémence, and I assumed she had chosen sleep over seeing a home she already knew. The rooms were as tidy as his office had been, and everything was lit with Carcel burners—lamps with clockwork pumps in the base to circulate the oil and keep the flames burning longer, far too expensive for my family to afford. There were clocks everywhere—each room had at least one. Between the clocks, the mechanical lamps, and the automatons, which seemed reluctant to let Geisler out of sight, the whole house buzzed like a hive.
    At the end of the second-floor corridor, Geisler led me into a small room with an iron-framed bed and, wedged into one corner beside a leaping fire, a writing desk. There were three clocks on the mantelpiece, pendulums swinging out of sync with each other and clicking loudly. “This can be yours,” he said, stepping back to let me in. “I had fresh linens put down, but it hasn’t been used in a while, so