Westie was sure Olive would look under the bed and they would be caught. She gripped handfuls of hair from the bearskins that covered the floor and held on.
Olive didn’t look under the bed. Instead, she put her little boot to the head of a doll beside its broken mate and stomped down until it shattered. She did it to another doll and another after that until she was laughing and dancing.
Demented little thing, Westie thought.
“Stop wasting time, Olivia. We’re late as it is,” Lavina called.
Olive cursed again and skipped from the room with her red cape fluttering behind her like a red gloved hand waving good-bye.
Only then did Alistair breathe again. “That was too close,” he said.
Westie agreed. She went to crawl out from under the bed, but her shirt caught on a nail. When she tried to reach behind and unhook herself, the box she was wedged against blocked her way. She kicked it to the side, then untangled her shirt. Curious as to what the little girl had been hiding under her bed, Westie pulled the box out with her.
Alistair was already out, brushing the dust from his clothes. “Let’s go. We don’t have time for that.” His mechanical voice made it impossible for him to sound nervous, but she saw it in the way he tapped his leg with one hand and raked his fingers through his hair with the other.
“It’ll only take a second.”
There was a blanket folded on top of the box. Beneath it were stacks of dolls. Only one caught her eye. Westie made a horrible, painfully sad sound as she reached into the box with her flesh hand. The doll was mangier than she remembered, but still had its brown yarn hair, burlap dress, and button eyes. Anger built a slow-burning fire in the center of her chest. It spread into rage the longer she sat there. The sad, humming sound she made became louder.
Alistair moved closer to her, his eyes fearful as he watched her grief turn to rage. Westie grabbed the doll, smelled its dusty smell, and clutched it to her chest. Her throat tightened, eyes throbbed with impending tears. She pinched her leg with her metal fingers, the agonizing pain meant to keep her fire from burning out of control, but when she looked back into the box and saw the pair of bronze owl earrings, it was too late. Alistair grabbed her before she could get to her feet and gain the full strength of her machine. He wrapped her in his arms, pinning her machine the way Nigel had at the airdocks, and held her face to his chest to muffle her screams.
Twenty-Eight
Westie sat in Alistair’s room, in his closet where they used to build forts. It had once been their sanctuary, a place to escape a world not ready—or not willing, as it often seemed—to accept metal children with missing parts. The men’s clothes and boots that now filled the space killed some of the childhood magic, but it still comforted her to be there.
Alistair sat cross-legged in front of her with a water basin in his lap. The glow of the lamp beside him gleamed off his mask. She briefly wondered what he looked like under there. Did he wear a beard? Did he look like a man, or the boy she remembered? Was he still as beautiful as he was then?
Westie closed her eyes as he washed her face and neck with a damp rag, feeling the edges of her headache begin to dull.
“Will you be all right?” he asked. “We don’t have to go to Nigel just yet.”
It had been several hours since they’d left the inn, and it had taken two of those hours for Alistair to get her to speak. Her lips still trembled, but she was able to form words.
“I need to do this,” she said. “I finally have the proof I need. I don’t want to sit on it longer than I have to.”
Alistair set the basin aside and took her by the flesh hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze before helping her to her feet.
Westie had sent Bena a telegraph bird, telling her she had news. Once she arrived, Westie gathered Nigel, Alistair, and Bena in the dining room. When they were all seated, Westie tossed her evidence on the table.
“You wanted proof,” she said with a shaky voice. “There it is.”
Nigel and Bena stared at the cache. “There it is,” Nigel said. Astonishment opened his mouth as he lifted the owl earrings he’d made for Westie’s thirteenth birthday. He let them dangle from his fingertips, studied the dried blood still caked in the folds.
Bena picked up the doll. “How does this prove anything?”
“Lift up the doll’s skirt,” Westie said.
Bena did, and read the name aloud. “Clementine. Who is Clementine?”
Westie stared at the doll in Bena’s hand and chewed her bottom lip. “Clementine was me. My momma sewed my name on the dress so I wouldn’t lose my doll. I gave it to my brother when he was sick. I thought if he was going to die on the wagon trail, he could take it to heaven with him and always have me by his side.”