Sky Life: Teaser Chapter

Freddie stepped down from the doorway of his parents’ town house. A servant closed the door behind him and locked it. He looked out into the streets of London, wondering where on earth he was going to go. He hadn’t the slightest idea of what he was going to do. In order to receive his living (of 10,000 a year, no less!) he had to prove to his parents that he was an adult. They didn’t say how to prove such a thing; they didn’t give him much advance notice to puzzle over the idea. Instead, they simply tossed him out. Tossed him into a world no longer filled with open doors.

Freddie lifted a foot, trying to decide where to go. He could go to his friend Sam’s house, he would be accepted there. Accepted, fed, sheltered… all of the things that his parents should be doing for him! Yes, he could go there, he thought. Yellow hair slipped into his eyes and he brushed it out, realizing that, while he could go to Sam’s house, it wouldn’t really help him to get his money. How could he possibly hope to prove himself? How could he prove that he wasn’t some cotton-brained fop?

Well, so. He had nowhere to go. Nowhere to be, nothing to do, no one to see. His existence, until now, had been wonderfully pointless. And his parents wanted him to do something about that? With a forced grin, he finally walked down the stairs, and set off into the early afternoon sun.

He set off, along the cobbled roads, towards the west. After all, why not? He knew full well that his complexion looked the best in this sort of light and that, when evening set in, his yellow hair would twinkle as though it were gold. And, as he has always said, “looking good will put you halfway to success.” He walked lightly, not wanting to let anyone on the streets know about the heavy burden that lay on his back. A lack of money is the worst of any pain, and nobody knew it as well as poor Freddie.

He saw a peddler man approaching on the sidewalk and resolved rather firmly not to meet his eyes. After all, eye contact is practically an invitation to engage in conversation! And to be seen conversing with a man of that sort? It made him sick to think of it! He looked everywhere he might, but the man still approached him, carrying a small paper cone filled with chestnuts. “Please, sir,” the man began, before Freddie was able to quicken his pace or dissuade the man in any way.

“Sorry,” Freddie blurted, “I’m afraid I don’t have any money.”

“Nonsense!” the man rasped, spit exploding out from between his yellow, cracked teeth and landing on Freddie’s face like so many soggy fruit flies. “A powder blue suit like that must have cost you a pretty penny! A pretty penny indeed!” the main trailed off, making indiscriminate noises as he admired Freddie’s light blue tailcoat, silver waistcoat (with rather expensive intricately embroidered various winged animals covering it) and extravagant, lacey cravat. Freddie knew that he looked rather dashing and, on a normal day, would have been awfully proud of the fact. He may even have pointed it out himself, in the right company. In the company of say… Miss Cassandra Eliot. The girl he one day intended to marry. Assuming he ever got out of his money-

“Sah? Izzeh a pretty penny in that pretty pocket tha’ you could offah fo’ some nuts. I wouldn’t bovver you wivvout really needin’ the money, sah, honess’ I wouldn’t. Only, the missus-”

“I don’t have any money!” Freddie barked at the man. “I have absolutely nothing except the clothes on my back, so if you could please just leave me alone, the way that everyone else in the world has, I would really appreciate it!”

The peddler just stood for a minute, looking at Freddie. Then, with his grimy paws, he pressed the cone of nuts into Freddie’s reluctant (and incredibly disgusted) hand, saying, “You’d bettah get some of these, then, sah. Mebbe your luck will improve. G’day, sah.” And with that, the peddler man walked away, leaving Freddie to bemoan the fact that he had just received charity from a beggar.

He sat down on the nearest stairway, thinking about his life. Before the beggar had interrupted his thoughts, he had been considering Cassandra Eliot. Dear, beautiful, sweet Cassandra Eliot. Rich, Cassandra Eliot, come to think of it. Freddie stood up. A plan was forming in his head. Perhaps he wouldn’t prove himself to his parents. Or perhaps he would do it by marrying Cassandra Eliot! They couldn’t possibly disapprove. She was certainly lovely, she was exceedingly accomplished, her family was in a rather high position… what could they possibly dislike about the match!? It was the most natural thing in the world! And if getting married couldn’t prove Freddie to be a responsible, thoughtful adult, what on earth would?

Freddie set off toward Cassandra’s house at a quick trot. He must arrive there before news of his funding difficulties reached her. Her family had no knowledge of his current poverty. If he could receive their blessing (and her acceptance of his hand) before any of this was revealed, perhaps he could avoid fiasco! And it wasn’t as if there was any question of his being accepted. After all, he was a rather fine specimen of a man. Strong jaw, broad shoulders, yellow hair kept perfectly in shape. He was an exquisite dresser, had the all the manners and attitude of the highest born, and had excellent taste. He was schooled brilliantly. As far as Freddie could tell, he was faultless. Except at the moment. Poverty was most certainly a fault. But, a fault that he would soon eradicate! He increased his pace.

After walking a few blocks, his legs began to tire. He was growing quite damp from the humid summer air and the unexpected bit of exercise. He paused, leaning against a streetlamp in an effort to regain some of his normally rather rigid composure. He did his very best not to pant, not wanting to sink even further into the mire of ill-manners. He was far too well bred to sweat or to pant! For him to wipe away any of the salty wetness now oozing from his temples would have been too shocking for words! No, Freddie elected to just stand for a moment by the lightpost and avoid any shocking behavior until his body returned to its normal splendor.

And it’s an awfully good thing he did for, at that moment, a small brass disc came tumbling from the sky at breakneck speed and embedded itself into the walk directly where he would have been, had he kept walking. Freddie could do nothing but stare. What in blazes was going on? He looked up at the sky and just caught a glimpse the tail of a giant dark blur as it swept away towards the city limits. Very curious. Freddie directed his attention back towards the object that had dropped with such force into the previously so solid seeming sidewalk.

Now that he looked closely at it, Freddie could see that it wasn’t merely a disc of brass. It was rather some sort of thorn shaped object, or it had been. The impact had broken it in half, leaving a sort of disk-shape and a rather pointy bit. The pointy bit was embedded in the walk, the disk had sliced into it sideways. Freddie could see a little bit of smoke rising from the thorn shape and looked, from a different angle, at it. He could see that it was filled with a sort of dark powder. He reached out a hand to touch it, only to have it swatted away by another paler hand. A lady’s hand. He looked up.

In front of him stood the oddest woman Freddie had ever seen. Not simply because of her attire, which was odd enough, the odd contraptions all over her body, or even because of her short, boyish haircut. She just gave off an air of total otherworldlyness. An air of impossibility. An air of potentially dangerous madness. Freddie could tell straight away that he wanted nothing to do with such a woman. She obviously had no sense of propriety, no understanding of class or of role, and, anyway, she was just plain weird looking!

She stuck out a hand, with obnoxious forwardness, expecting to receive Freddie’s. He took it politely (noting the shocking lack of glove!) and kissed it, as society dictated. She raised an eyebrow and said, in a deep, husky, and rather awfully strong voice, “Hullo, there! My name’s Alina! Sorry about all this! That’s my bowcap you’ve got there, and I really wouldn’t recommend your touching it. At the speed and distance it fell, it must have worked up an awful lot of friction and I’ll bet you 23.80 it’s hotter than Edwin Booth!” She laughed at her own joke (or, Freddie assumed it was a joke, he really had no idea what any of those words meant) and then went on, without waiting for Freddie to give his name, “Anyway, I’m prepared for this sort of thing so, if you’ll give me just half a moment, I’ll have this right out of your way.” She unhooked a clasp on one of the pockets of her low-hanging belt and pulled out a pair of very thick leather gloves. Pulling them up to her (previously bare!) elbows, she bent over and yanked the brass objects out of the ground with strength beyond any that Freddie would have expected in a woman. Even a woman as peculiar as this.

She was very thin, in an odd, muscular way. She wore trousers, of all things, that were impossibly tight and tucked into a pair of form-fitting, lace-up, knee-high boots. These, too, were leather and had a good deal of heel, which raised her up an extra two or three inches. She wore what appeared to be a corset, or only the top half of a dress. It certainly wasn’t any sort of blouse or shirt that Freddie had ever seen. It pulled her body into the hourglass shape that was so popular these days and thrust her breasts toward her collarbone in a rather distracting manner. Her coat, which appeared to be stolen from some sort of sea-captain or other dripped over her arm, revealing the harness she was wearing. It attached her to some sort of double-tubed machine. Freddie couldn’t, for the life of him, tell what it was. He had certainly never seen anything remotely similar.

She wore a monocle, he saw now. Odd, in a woman. Most of the women he knew would never admit to having difficulty in seeing or, if they did, they would wear a delicate pair of spectacles or something else that wouldn’t draw attention. This woman seemed to demand attention in everything that she did and wore. She didn’t seem to be embarrassed by any of the social faux pas that she was committing. And they were numerous. Having collected the various pieces of her “bowcap,” she was now shoving them unceremoniously into a messenger bag that she had pulled from nowhere.

Finally, she closed the bag, turned the intricate clasp on it, and straightened up. Once more, she offered her hand to Freddie, shaking his heartily before he had the chance to pucker towards it again, and said jovially, “well, that’s all I needed. I’m off! See you ‘round, old boy!” And, with that, she pulled out her pocket watch, fumbled around with it until she found the right bit and pressed down. She was thrown into the sky in a blaze of fire and disappeared.

Freddie could only stare. He had no idea what had just happened. A crazywoman had appeared from nowhere, picked up some bits of metal and had flown away. If he wasn’t such an ordinary stable and well bred gentleman, Freddie would think that some sort of madness was surfacing. But there was no history of such a thing in his family and he would see to it that there never would be.

Freddie lingered by the streetlamp, unable to decide if he should really go to Cassandra Eliot’s immediately after an experience like that. He would be better off going to one of the many clubs that he had joined. He could certainly use a stiff drink. After all, it wasn’t as if he actually had to pay for such things. He could simply run up a bit of debt and pay it back immediately after he got his inheritance. And, after an experience like that, a good drink may really steady his nerves…

Freddie had just decided to head over to the Collinworth (his favourite of the clubs he belonged to and the one where he was most likely to run into Sam) when there was a loud noise and a good deal of heat and that crazywoman had landed directly in front of him. She really was awfully confident, this woman. Here she was, hands on her hips, smiling at him like they were the best of friends.

“Hullo!” she said brightly, as though her second tumble into his life was some sort of grand joke. “Hello,” said he, miserably. Maybe he was going crazy. Surely no women dressed or acted like this. Not even lower humans, actresses or any of that sort.

“Sorry,” She said, “How completely rude of me!” Freddie was glad that she was finally acknowledging her incredible disregard for social graces. “I should have invited you along! Come on, Johnny!” And, before he could tell her that his name was not Johnny, before he could tell her that he did not want to come along, this crazywoman grabbed him round the chest and pressed the button on her pocketwatch.

Freddie flew. Straight up into the sky in a blazing burst of white hot energy. The world whistled past his ears as he launched over the building, held tightly in the arms of some lady he had only met a few minutes ago. All that he could think was, “oh god, I hope nobody sees me.” His reputation would be completely ruined. He would never marry Cassandra, he would never regain his wealth, he would never again be allowed in polite society. He didn’t enjoy the view, not that he could at the speed that they were travelling, he did not enjoy the ride at all. But, it was over before he really became aware of it. Before he had a chance to be frightened. Suddenly, they were in a field, collapsed in a tangled heap in the dead grass, smoke beginning to rise from the odd bit of machinery on that madwoman’s back.

Freddie disentangled himself from her (somehow) and stood up, straightening his collar and finding his top hat amidst the mess of their fall. He shoved it back onto his head and began a firm reprimand with, “Madam! I say-” he was, however, interrupted by a moan of total loss coming from the young woman with the odd contraptions. She was looking at the odd device that was responsible for their having flown or, rather, been tossed into the field. “That’s two today!” she cried, cradling the odd machine in her arms. “First, the bowcap flew off my zeppelin and I had to land the poor dear on the spot, but now my lifting machine is gone! I may as well give up now!”

Freddie really didn’t know how to react. There was no etiquette for such a situation. No book was going to tell him what colour flowers to present her with or what sort of words to use in consolation. He moved towards her and sort of patted her on the shoulder, the way that he would one of his male companions but, upon feeling her bare shoulder beneath his hand, withdrew, unable to handle the impropriety of such a situation. Finally, he found the words, “Is there anything I can… do?”

“I doubt it.” Came her muffled reply. She removed her hands from her face and looked up at him, taking note of his powder blue suit and ruffle-ey cravat. “I doubt there’s very much you can do at all.” Freddie was slightly offended by this remark, but didn’t feel it appropriate to respond with any sort of sharpness toward a distressed woman. Instead, he straightened his cravat and tucked it back into his waistcoat. He noticed something shining by his foot and picked it up. It was her monocle. Looking at it closely, he saw that it was a highly complicated piece of mechanics, rather than a simple piece of glass in a bit of metal. There were all sorts of tiny complicated gears and tubes, whirring and clicking away. As he looked, two small magnifying glasses flicked out of the tiny machine and overlapped to magnify his hand tenfold. Startled, Freddie nearly dropped the object, but managed to hold onto it. He offered it to the girl and she took it shakily, putting it back over her eye and clipping the chain to the front of her top.

Sniffing, she started to stand up, gracefully rising from the ground as though gravity didn’t really affect her. She was really quite pretty, in spite of the whole insanity thing. She had a very cute pointy nose and her pale face was spattered in freckles. Her dark eyes were actually even pretty with tears in them, something that not all girls are able to accomplish. Still, she was undeniably mad and had the manners of a savage.

Once standing, she started away towards a pile of canvas that Freddie could see a ways off. There seemed to be some sort of ship behind it, with a glass globe and some odd metal structure. She walked over to it, picked up a bit of canvas, and let out a huge wail. “Oh, my poor baby!” she sobbed. “You are so beautiful! It will take ages to bring you back!”

Freddie just stood there awkwardly, wondering what she was wailing about. The object in front of her was obviously not a baby. He could not understand why she would refer to it as such. She turned on him with sudden fierceness. “You have to help me! Please! I have to get her back in the air! I can’t stay here! Please!” She grabbed Freddie by the lapels with that odd strength again and shook him until he could do no more than say, “yes, yes, of course! I’ll do anything you say! Only stop, please!” She didn’t, though. She shook him a few more times and then collapsed on his shoulder, wailing again. Freddie stood there, not putting his arms around her (think of the impropriety!) unable to come up with anything to say or do.

After a few moments of caterwauling, the woman’s tears slowed and eventually stopped. She shook herself and let go of poor Freddie, suddenly all business. “Right.” She said. “Let’s get this bird back in the sky. I didn’t expect her to lose hydrogen so suddenly, but that’s all in the past and now the only thing I can do is get her going again.” She marched over to the mess of canvas and started tugging it into some sort of odd order. She looked up at still-awkward Freddie and said, “well, come on, then!”

Together, they pulled the canvas balloon of the zeppelin into the proper shape. Sure enough, there was some sort of ship attached, it was no normal-looking zeppelin carriage at all. Not that Freddie had ever seen a Zeppelin in real life. No, the closest he had ever come was seeing a picture of one in the gossip papers that he read. Nevertheless, this was like nothing he had ever seen before.

It was enormous! There was a large ship sort of thing, sitting upright on the ground. It stayed upright, not because it was embedded in the ground, but because there was very odd structure coming off one side of it. It was a sort of cage structure, with a few things that looked like folded bat wings, or ship masts tied to the sides. Sticking out of the bottom (indeed, threaded through it) was a sort of periscope. All of this was mounted on a track and would obviously hang below the vessel, when it was in the air.

A few yards away lay an odd looking ball. It had a diameter of about 4 meters and was made almost entirely of steel. It was riveted together, except where there was a large window, through which Freddie could see a chair, a wheel, and a large metal box with dials and levers. It had a few propellers sticking out of it and appeared to attach to the front of the ship.

The ship itself was a beauty. It had an expansive deck and, in most ways, resembled a sailing ship. The main difference was the amount of odd mechanics that were installed throughout the space. There was another of those weird looking metal boards with all the dials, buttons and levers in front of the wheel. There was also, of course, a sort of odd stove-like contraption, which the woman explained was a hydrogen processor. Finally, it had a house built into it. In fact, the back half of the ship looked a good deal like a houseboat. At the very back, there was another batlike tail, which one could only assume was for steering the vessel.

Freddie didn’t have long to stand and stare, however. The woman marched swiftly over to him and took a glance over her poor, deflated zeppelin. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” she asked, as if there was no denying it. And, perhaps, there wasn’t, when the zeppelin was inflated. But Freddie couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would look like at the moment, so he just sort of nodded and smiled.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I can’t for the life of me remember your name! What did you say it was?”

“I didn’t.” Freddie responded, withholding the urge to remind her that she hadn’t given him time in all of her incessant babbling. “I’m Freddie. Freddie Marchmain.”

“Alina Thoroughgood.” She said, holding out her hand again. Freddie shook it. He was starting to get the hang of this. “Let’s get this girl in the sky!” said Alina, with a quick turn towards her “baby.” They tied a good dozen or so ropes to the netting that held the balloon to the ship and hammered some wooden stakes into the ground, to keep the balloon in place. Then Freddie looked around, trying to figure out how they were going to fill the balloon and what with.

Alina first took out the messenger bag that she had shoved her “bowcap” into. She set to work re-attaching it to the front of the zeppelin, where it appeared to keep in the gas and regulate the temperature of the balloon. Finally, it was time to fill the zeppelin up. Alina twisted a gear on the side of her monocle, which set the whole thing into a frenzy. “What on earth are you doing?” Freddie asked, unable to make head or tail of what her plan was.

“Looking for the highest concentration of hydrogen in the area!” Alina explained. “There are natural sources of the stuff all over the place, provided you find the right air pockets. This machine allows me to see the atomic makeup of everything in the surrounding area so that I can decide where best to use this!” and, with that, she pulled from her bag (with dramatic flourish) an odd sort of telescope. “This,” she explained, “is a small hydrogen processor. The larger one on the ship can keep the vessel running, but I can take this processor to the best source of hydrogen to fill the vessel more quickly. It will make the element more compact and allow for transport of a great deal of hydrogen to the ship, where I can use a simple electrical surge to decompress the element and use it to power my ship.”

Freddie had understood very little of what Alina had said, but had decided a while ago to simply go along with it. Alina walked around, looking at the air, until she found the proper (or what she claimed to be so) place to start up her hydrogen processor. After turning a few gears, three brass legs descended from the odd telescope-like device and she stood it up, pulled a lever on the side and held on tightly to it as it shook terribly. A golden light seemed to pool around the device and the vibration increased until Freddie was fairly certain that Alina would not be able to hang on much longer. It was just then that the whirring slowed and the machine quit its vibrating and stood still. The legs retracted and Alina brought the spyglass over to the ship. She slid it into an opening in the large hydrogen processor and the golden lights began all over again. A gas was hissing steadily into the balloon and it started to inflate and rise. It grew and grew, filling the huge net that kept it attached to the ship. Finally, it was completely full and had risen a good five feet or so above the ground. The ropes nailed to the ground were straining for release and the ship was groaning in what seemed to be excitement (though was surely the sudden shift in the wood’s position).

Alina climbed up the odd metal structure, which was now on its way to hanging below the vessel (although, there wasn’t yet enough space). She began cutting ropes, preparing to ascend into the heavens. “Wait!” yelled Freddie, “I’ll undo the ropes! No need to destroy them all!” Alina shouted her assent and he started prying up the pegs, which she would then pull up. Finally, he had undone enough of them that the airship began to rise away from the ground. He looked up at it, saying his farewells to all of this madness, and was surprised to see a rope ladder hurtling towards his face. Alina was shouting something, but he couldn’t hear. He grabbed hold of the ladder and started climbing up as she pulled the ladder in. He was going for a ride.

Once on board, Freddie collapsed onto the deck. He hadn’t gotten this close to the ship, so he was still trying to look all about him. At the same time, however, he was totally dizzy from being up so high. He’d never been this high before. It was very hard for him to accept and he was feeling a little queasy about the whole thing. Finally, he managed to stand up (after a few tries) and look over the side of the zeppelin. He promptly lost his stomach.

One he had finished disposing of his breakfast, however, he noticed how beautiful the city looked in the setting sun. He looked out over the city, suddenly awed by the fact that he was lucky enough to live there and even lucky enough to have this adventure. He rested his hands on the railing and looked out over the golden sky and painted city. Feeling a hand on his, he looked down and saw Alina looking out as well. Crazy, improper, beautiful Alina. He thought about his nice, large inheritance and about the comfortable, danger-free life that he could go back to. Then he thought about the adventure that he’d just had and the dozens more that were probably waiting on the horizon. He had a choice to make. Comfortable life or the Sky Life. It was an easy one.