Page 4 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
“Yes, but—”
“I’ve simply increased this one’s size and optimized its performance for certain tasks. Nothing to it, once you understand the science.”
I’m no scientist, but I’ve had a decent education—at home, of course, since Papa didn’t trust schools. Still, I have a foundational understanding of physics and mechanics. Nothing I’ve learned supports the possibility of such an automaton.
But Drosselmeyer is an innovator. He deals with advanced technologies. Maybe he has unlocked some secret to self-motivated clockwork puppets.
Strange that I don’t see any clockwork on the maid—just wooden joints.
“It’s nearly time for dinner,” says Drosselmeyer. “Go fetch your sister, if you would be so kind.”
It’s an obvious dismissal. He doesn’t want me in this room any longer, nor is he prepared to entertain more questions about the automaton. Is it because he doesn’t like explaining high-minded science to regular people? Or is there some other reason?
I hurry upstairs, dart into Louisa’s room, and close the door. “I have something to tell you.”
2
Clara’s story delights me. Secret rooms? Puppet maids? Nothing this interesting ever happened at home.
I want to go see the secret room at once, but Clara makes me finish unpacking first, and by the time I’m done, we have to go down for dinner. Lucky for me, dinner is served to us by a pair of wooden automatons—both women, both wearing black uniforms. Their movements are jerky, and there’s a faint creak of wood sometimes, but they’re practically soundless.
“Why use these and not real people?” I ask.
“Cheaper,” says Drosselmeyer. “And less annoying.”
“But surely real people could accomplish a wider range of tasks,” Clara puts in.
“You’d be surprised. How’s your roast beef?”
“Delicious,” I reply. “And on that note—what’s the situation as far as ‘beef’ in this area? And when I say ‘beef,’ I mean beefy men.”
“Louisa!” gasps my sister.
“They don’t have to be men of means,” I continue airily. “When I marry, I’ll have the means.”
“Indeed.” Drosselmeyer cuts a piece of meat. “Perhaps you forget, however, that as your guardian, I must approve any match you desire to make.”
Clara kicks me under the table, a clear sign that I must not get angry. I must not rebel too openly or protest too loudly. Loud, careless Louisa, always someone to be quieted and apologized for.
I am so damn sick of hearing her say, “Louisa!” to me in that reproachful tone.
I am so damn sick of being treated like a rebel who must be curbed, simply because I want to make my own choices and enjoy my life the way I see fit.
But for now, as much as I hate to admit it, Clara is right. I need to appear docile and obedient, at least until I figure out the character of our new guardian.
“Of course, Uncle Drosselmeyer,” I say sweetly, with a huge smile. “I shall be delighted to rely on your judgment.”
As we finish dinner, I watch Drosselmeyer closely. Despite the slipshod appearance of his clothing, he takes care of himself. He’s lean beneath the clothes, and strong, judging from the way he handled our luggage upstairs, on the way to the rooms. His beard is perfectly trimmed.
Clara said he isn’t someone I can seduce. I beg to differ. I can seduce anyone. The postman, our neighbor’s gardener, the tutor Papa reluctantly hired to help Clara with math, the baker’s son, the assistant at the book shop... and many more. Can I help it if men find me irresistible? Women, too. There was the neighbor girl I kissed when I was thirteen, the baker’s buxom daughter, and a girl in the village choir whom I fingered to climax under her robe during a festival performance.
I prefer men, though—there’s something so primal in the way they want me, the way their bodies react so boldly, prominently. I love a low, helpless male moan so much. I wonder if I could tease one out of Drosselmeyer.
But I need to be strategic about this. Seducing him probably isn’t the way to get him to approve my choice of a husband, whenever I make that choice. This may call for a different kind of manipulation. And it starts with me finding out what he’s hiding on the third floor.
After dinner, Drosselmeyer takes us down a long hallway toward the back of the house. He shows us the ballroom, the second dining room, the music room, and the corridor leading to the conservatory. There’s another hallway that apparently leads to the kitchens and the old servants’ quarters, but we continue onward, stopping before a pair of huge double doors, inlaid with chips of porcelain or glass or something—a mosaic of sorts. Clara seems very impressed by it.
Drosselmeyer throws a lever beside the doors, and I hear the faint hiss of gas through piping.
