“We had been eating rats, June. We were weak. But this man was strong. He was holy. My eyes filled with tears because I knew then he was an avenging angel, righteous, stalking the mists of battle.
“And I remember that I smiled, my cracked lips bleeding. I felt I was somehow witnessing the truth. The very incarnation of justice.
“A hatch on the panzer opened and the Nazi tank commander emerged, firing his tommy gun. Bullets spat right into the angel’s back. He stumbled and fell, like a man, and lay crumpled among the bodies of my friends.
“The commander climbed off the tank, cautious. Trying to look every direction at once. This man had seen the furious vengeance of God and knew he had been judged. I lay still, my breath shallow, watching from beneath the turned-up brim of my ushanka hat and trying not to shiver.
“The doomed man leaned over to inspect the body. I do not know what he saw, but I will never forget his face as he saw it. His eyes went wide in shock. He spun, coat flapping, and screamed a command to his driver inside the tank, looking away for one second…it was enough. The angel rose, taking the man by the face. Those gloved fingers nearly reached around the back of the man’s head, lifting him off the ground. With one squeeze—”
My grandfather yanked his thumb across his throat.
“The tank was still idling, waiting. Then the hatch on top clanged shut and the panzer engine began to rumble. Running away. Imagine. The might of a tank, invincible and armored, fleeing from one man.
“The angel stood up and shook out his tattered coat. Then the thing leaped onto the side of the tank. With one hand, he tore the hatch right off the turret. Reaching inside, he dragged the shrieking German driver out by his collar, thumped his face against the metal, and rolled his body onto the ground. Like it was nothing. Like he was slapping a fish against a rock.
“The angel stood for a moment, head down in despair. Something fell from his hands. Then he walked away, disappearing into the mist. The tank kept rolling toward the river. After some time, I heard a splash. The sting of my injury was growing, but even then, curiosity had not left me. So I dragged myself over rubble and death until I reached the spot where the angel had stood.
“I saw the bullets go into him. But on the ground, instead of blood, I found shards of metal. Bits of leather. Bullet fragments and something else. An object, very old I think, yet more modern than any machinery in that battle.
“That is what you hold in your hands, June…this relic is what the angel of vengeance left behind.”
My grandfather stopped speaking. He finally looked up at me, watching as I traced my fingers over the curves of the artifact.
“There are strange things in the world, June. Things older than we know. Walking with the faces of men…there are angels among us. Sometimes they will judge. And sometimes they will exact punishment.
“What you hold belongs to their world. Not to ours.”
Under his stern gaze, I understood his message.
Tell no one.
“Most people don’t want to see a hidden world. They are content to live in ignorance. Others are more curious. What kind of person are you, June?”
“I don’t know, Grandfather,” I said truthfully.
With that, he carefully took the relic from me, wrapped it back in its oily cloth, and placed it inside the ammunition box. He pushed the old brass padlock back through the ring and, with a click, he locked it tight.
“Can I see it again, sometime?” I asked.
Grandfather looked at me for a long moment.
“Someday you will,” he said, nodding.
Two years later, at his funeral, my grandmother handed me a sealed envelope. My name was scrawled on it in my grandfather’s rough handwriting. Inside, I found a small thing that changed the course of my life.
A brass key.
PART ONE
NEPRAVDA
(Untruth)
In attempting to construct such machines we should not be irreverently usurping His power of creating souls….Rather we are…instruments of His will, providing mansions for the souls that He creates.
—ALAN TURING, 1950
1
OREGON, PRESENT
The clockwork automaton is the size of a small child, a hard weight against my fingers. Her glinting metal bones poke through faded lace. A cherubic porcelain face peeks out of the yellowed fabric; cheeks etched with a patina of fine cracks; lips pursed and faded red; eyes bright, black, and smooth. At a glance, the machine looks like a child. But what I’m cradling in my arms is far more strange.
For a start, this child is more than three hundred years old.
The Old Believer who allowed me into this stuffy church alcove is standing in the doorway, staring at me from the depths of his black beard, the stray hairs of it climbing his cheeks. It’s hard to figure out his age under all that hair, but it’s easy to see the discomfort in his lucid blue eyes. Tall and bent under the cloth of his black robe, the priest looks like the grim reaper, watching my every move.
In contrast to the women of the church, who wear prairie dresses, their beautiful hair twisted into thick braids hidden under silk hats—I’m wearing a pair of safety goggles hanging around my neck, blue latex gloves on my hands, and dusty black jeans. My dirty hair is up in a haphazard ponytail.
It’s my third and final week on the road, and I’m way beyond caring.
I lay the porcelain girl on a black pad spread over a gothic oaken desk. My usual work space at the university doesn’t have hand-carved cuckoos and clusters of ivy teased out of solid wood, but I’m used to making do with whatever I find in the field.
“Is he going to stare at us like that the whole day?” I ask Oleg, my translator.
“Probably,” he replies, not looking at me.
Oleg is sitting on a stool, leaning his elbows on his knees. The stocky man smells like cigarettes and aftershave. He’s consistently rude and impatient—and I’m pretty sure he’s been cursing at me in Ukrainian—but the sponsor that funds my travel decided that Oleg speaks the right languages.
Several years ago, the Kunlun Foundation reached out to me on behalf of a wealthy Chinese benefactor, a woman apparently obsessed with mechanical antiquities. Primitive automatons like this doll are a niche area of research, with sources of funding few and far between. Looking at the big picture, I suppose a grouchy translator is a small price to pay in return for the travel and tools I need.
I pull the chain on an ornate brass lamp. This alcove is almost claustrophobic, crammed with bookshelves and streaked with dim shafts of light that slant through a high row of arched, leaded windows. A silent waterfall of dust trickles through the light and settles onto the thick, ocher-colored carpet. Outside, the sky is bright and cloudy, spitting occasional raindrops against the glass.