A Skein of Words

It’s been a good long while since I had the chance to work on this, but I did get a few hours to tackle it last night, and made some changes I’m super-excited about. It’s still very much in progress, but I did get it to the end of part III, and made a bunch of expansions to the first two parts; so I’m posting the whole new version here. Spoilers, notes and outline are here.

I

The body had been in shadow; but as the sun slowly rose higher, its light flooded in, sickened and dimmed by the lab’s incredibly grimy windows. It illuminated first the dead man’s worn, aged boots; then his tattered, torn workman’s trousers; then his half-rotted shirt and vest, and his white wrinkled hand, clutching at his chest as if frozen after his final agony — and finally his head, the beard neatly trimmed, the skin stretched tight over the bones, the eye sockets empty. He had clearly been dead for weeks, maybe a month.

The rest of the lab was immaculate. Books were organized on the shelves by subject, and then by author. Glass bottles, polished and neatly arranged on the shelves and tables, glittered as the light touched them; the liquids within them glowed oddly blue, green, or gold. At the main table right near the window, the latest project sat completed: a torus of wood, brass, and gleaming copper wire, perched on its end. The dirty light from the window shone directly through it, casting its circular shadow across the lab. Beside it, Ashleigh Isaacs slept with her head on the table, snoring gently. Chunks of wood and brass and glass and wire lay by her hands where she’d dropped them.

The light touched Ashleigh’s tight-curled brown hair and she stirred, sat up, blinked, and rubbed her eyes. She took a deep breath and smiled at the torus on the table in front of her, running her hand over its surface. Then she frowned, sniffed at an unpleasant smell, and her eyes fell on the body.

She screamed.

II

When Franklin dashed in a second later, he was startled, but he didn’t scream. He’d seen plenty of dead bodies before. He ran back out, got some water from the sink, and brought it to Ashleigh. Ashleigh had been raised to think that if you were a female and you saw a dead body, you fainted; but somehow that didn’t happen. So she stopped screaming and accepted the water.

“How did he get here?” asked Franklin.

“I don’t know,” said Ashleigh. “I just woke up and saw him.” She cursed — not something she’d been raised to do, but she found it useful, and Franklin didn’t mind. She emptied the glass and put it down. “My God! Who is he?”

Franklin knelt by the body. “He’s been dead maybe a week or two,” he said. “Looks like he may have died of a heart problem.” Gingerly he felt in the pockets of the rotten clothing. “Some coins here, not many. No purse, no cards… No way to tell who he is.”

“You seem awfully calm,” said Ashleigh, a little more harshly than she’d intended. Franklin didn’t seem preturbed at all.

Franklin shrugged. “I’ve seen dead bodies before,” he said. “My uncle, Red Feather, died right next to me when we were surprised by a group of Míkmaqs.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” said Ashleigh, aghast. “That’s horrible! How old were you?”

“About ten,” said Franklin. “It was a long time ago. But he died well. And I was in some other battles before I came to school here.”

“It’s so strange,” said Ashleigh. “I’ve never left Boston. It’s odd to think of — of people just fighting and dying out in the woods outside the city…”

“It didn’t happen all the time,” said Franklin. “Maybe once or twice in a year, depending on whether there had been an argument over fishing territory, and whether the French were paying them to attack us.

[Here, franklin should do something else physical; bring in more Victorian description. What are they wearing? What is their hair like? Also, I’d like to clarify their relationship: there is sexual tension here, but because we’re not in anyone’s head, it’s not visible. Go into Ashleigh’s head and have her notice his hair and physique, and have her get a bit flustered when he touches her, and that’ll be enough.]

And there are plenty of people fighting and dying here in the city, you know.”

“Well, sure. But not at MIT. Except this guy, I guess. Creepy.”

“Yes,” said Franklin. “I’ve never seen a body this decomposed, I admit. Not in the forest, and not in the math department.”

“They’re not common in the engineering department either,” said Ashleigh. “But look — how long do you think he’s been dead?”

“I’m not sure. A few weeks? A month?”

“You’re sure? So there’s no way the police could suspect that I murdered him?”

Franklin snorted. “Of course not! There’s no sign of foul play at all.”

“But how did he get here? Did someone drag him in? Why would anyone do that? Is it some kind of sick joke? A prank?”

“Maybe,” said Franklin. “A student who has access to a morgue?”

“A medical student,” said Ashleigh. “Maybe he’s still nearby, waiting to see how we’ll react.” She went to the door of the lab, which led directly out onto the street. It wasn’t a great place for a lab, really — there was a lot of traffic outside, and it wasn’t uncommon for curious passerby to stop and peer in the windows. But there was barely enough lab space for all the male students at MIT, much less the female students. She had to take what she could get.

The street was almost empty at this early hour, but she nearly tripped over a huge sack full of newspapers that had been dropped right by the door.

“Franklin! Look at this.” She bent down over the sack.

“What is it?”

“This is the newspaper sack that boy last night was carrying. See? The strap is cinched up for a boy to carry. And it was right here that I bumped into him. It’s definitely his bag.”

“Wait, I’m confused. You bumped into a paper boy and he dropped his bag? Last night?”

“Well, he didn’t drop it right then. I was just taking a break from my project, and came out for a smoke, and almost walked right into him. He jumped aside and almost ran into that professor, Dr. Mordeaux.”

“Mordeaux! That was unlucky. He hasn’t liked us much since we were admitted. I don’t think he likes women or Indians.”

“Yes. You should have seen the look he gave me. But I don’t think it was just bad luck — I think he’s been following us around. “

“Great. …So the boy was out here selling papers, and at some point he — what? He dropped his bag and ran off?”

“That would be odd; why would he just leave his papers? More likely he was attacked or kidnapped or something, and dropped the bag then. And that means — Franklin, the police are going to suspect I captured him!”

“Why would they think that?”

“Who else are they going to suspect? I’m an easy target.”

“Why do you say that? Ashleigh, relax. He probably just ran off home or something. There’s no reason to think he’s actually missing.”

Ashleigh shook her head and looked doubtful. She looked at the papers again, and frowned. “Wait. Frank, do you notice anything odd about this?”

He studied it a second. “It’s old,” he said. “It’s — oh! Ashleigh, it’s from thirty years ago! It’s got dispatches from the War in it.” He grabbed one. “‘Our correspondent, reporting from Washington… President Lincoln said today…’ Are you sure this is the bag the boy was carrying?”

“Whose else would it be?”

“How should I know?” he demanded. “But why is he carrying a load of old papers?…”

“I don’t know.” Ashleigh sighed, stood, and turned back into the lab. “Bring the bag in; maybe it’s got some clue to where the boy went.”

She sniffed as she crossed the threshold. “Faugh! The smell in here is getting bad.”

Franklin wrinkled his nose. “It certainly is. Although — Ashleigh, the lab looks fantastic! Look at how clean everything is! Is this the result of your project to build an automoton to clean your lab for you? Did you finish it?”

Ashleigh looked around, beaming. “I certainly did. I worked on it most of the night, and finished it up in the early hours.” She patted the wood and brass torus on the workbench.

“What? That doesn’t look like an automaton. Does it roll or something?”

“No, this is quite different. Building an automaton turned out to be very complicated. I kept getting tripped up on things that should have been simple, like walking, seeing things properly… And I thought, why not just make use of the platonic brane? A simple aether-thinner should allow enough of the disentropic field to propogate — over a small area, at least.”

“But that’s ingenious! — Look at this! Even your books are organized! How much energy did it take?”

Ashleigh had been blushing with pride, but now she frowned. “Well, that’s the odd thing. It took much less than I was anticipating.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Sure, I suppose. But I’d rather know the _why_ of it.”

Franklin sighed. “Well, I suppose that gives us three mysteries today. We have extra energy, an extra dead old man, and a missing boy. The police will have to solve the last two, of course.”

“There’s no way we’re calling the police,” said Ashleigh. “Not until we’ve solved this ourselves.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Think about it, Franklin! There’s a dead body in my lab, and I was probably the last one to see this missing boy — and Mordeaux saw me bump into him. And I’m one of the few female students here at school, and hardly any of the professors like me. Dr. Patterson will vouch for me, but he’s the only one. And I’m an orphan and poor as dirt. The police will arrest me just to save themselves the trouble of actually investigating.”

“I forgot,” said Franklin. “This is a _civilized_ society.”

“And none of your sarcasm,” Ashleigh snapped. “This is serious. There’s no way we’re calling the police until we can hand them proof of who actually did this. And I –”

“Miss Ashleigh Isaacs,” said a voice at the door. There was a single sharp knock which slammed the door back on its hinges, and two of Boston’s finest stepped in, their broad shoulders and huge blue coats blocking the light from the doorway. “We’ve been informed that — cor, Danny, there it is all right, just where that passerby said he’d be. Don’t he half smell ripe, too! Miss Isaacs, you’re under arrest for suspicion of murder.”

“What! I never — officer, you must listen — I just woke up this morning and saw him there — I have no idea how –”

“Ashleigh!” cried Franklin. “Hush! Don’t say any more until you have a lawyer!”

“Oh, she’ll talk, Injun,” said the officer, grinning. “We’ll make sure she talks.”

III

“So let me get this straight,” said Inspector Strand. “We have a corpse — been dead three weeks, no identification. We have a missing paperboy, unknown whereabouts. His mother says he didn’t make it home last night. We have a bag of newspapers from 1861 or thereabouts. And Dr. Mordeaux, last night you saw Miss Isaacs abduct this boy?”

Mordeaux sat up straight in his chair, folded both gloved hands over the top of his cane, and thrust his luxuriantly whiskered chin directly at the inspector. He spoke with conviction and force.

“Yes,” he said. “As though I’d seen it with my own eyes.”

Strand nodded and began to write in his notebook. He, Mordeaux, Ashleigh, Frank, and several other officers were in the Inspector’s office, making their statements. It was a rather dingy affair, decorated sallowly with yellow paint and bare wooden furniture, and lit by windows barely less grimy than those at Ashleigh’s lab.

“And so you — wait, what? ‘As though?’ Doctor, did you see it happen, or not?”

“Just as I said.”

“He’s lying!” cried Ashleigh. “I did _not_ abduct him! I have no idea where he is!”

“Doctor, this is a very serious accusation,” continued the Inspector.

“It is indeed,” said Mordeaux, frowning and shaking his head disapprovingly.

“We must be quite certain of your evidence.”

“Oh, you may rely upon it, sir.”

“But I didn’t do it!” cried Ashleigh.

“Miss Isaacs,” snapped Strand, “you will be silent or I’ll have you removed to a holding cell.” He sighed. “I apologize for asking again, then, sir, but I want to make sure it is very clear. Did you actually, with your own eyes, observe Ashleigh Isaacs kidnap this young boy?”

“Yes, she kidnapped him. Unequivicably.”

“_Yes,_ you saw her, or _yes,_ she kidnapped him?”

“Yes!” growled Mordeaux. “Inspector, I do not understand how our police department can afford to accommodate deaf officers. Either you are deaf or dumb or both, but I am a busy man simply trying to do his civic duty, and I will not be pestered all morning with repetitive questions.”

Strand began furiously writing in his notepad, muttering into his sideburns. “Very well, sir. And did you also observe these students bringing the corpse into their lab?”

Mordeaux thrust out his beard proudly. “I did not, Inspector, but I’ve seen them doing similar sorts of pranks in the past. It’s just the sort of thing they would do. Just last week I saw them gathering up cemetary dirt for some vile experiment or other.”

“That wasn’t the cemetary,” snapped Ashleigh. “That was the park. We were digging in the leaves for high-entropy acidic compounds.”

“Miss Isaacs, I’m warning you,” said Strand.

“It was the cemetary, young lady, and I –”

“It was the park, you daft old bat! It was right by the statue of Washington! What, did you think it was his tombstone or something?”

“I will not be spoken to in this manner,” growled Mordeaux. “Inspector, if you cannot control this young lady –”

“Take her to the cell,” said Strand. “Be as gentle as you can; she may be mentally unstable. I’m told she is an orphan and fancies herself a student.”

“Yes, sir,” said the constable, and laid his hand on Ashleigh’s shoulder.

“Unstable?!” shrieked Ashleigh. “Why, you stupid, uneducated, half-witted –”

“Come along, now, Miss,” growled the officer. “We’ve got some knitting you can do while you’re waiting for your trial.”

Ashleigh screamed defiance and gripped the chair as hard as she could, but the officer easily lifted her out of it. Ashleigh went limp, trying to make it harder for him to move her, but he just slung her over his shoulder like a sack of meal. She screamed again.

At that moment Franklin, moving like a snake, knelt, grabbed the officer’s ankle, and yanked it into the air. The officer tumbled like a stack of bricks, and

[more here about Ash’s feelings and decisions and THEN actions]

Ashleigh rolled away and was on her feet and through the door. Franklin tried to follow, but the second constable had already drawn his revolver and fired a shot over his shoulder. Franklin dropped flat on his face and put his hands out.

As Ashleigh ran, she heard a confusion of voices behind her. “Assaulting an officer of the law… We’ll catch her soon enough…Damned Indian…”

Oh Franklin, Franklin, why did you do that? Now, on top of her murder and kidnapping, he’d be on trial too. Her frame shook with sobs, but she didn’t let that slow her down. She had to be quick, to escape, to figure out what was going on, to exonerate them both. And fast.

Note: this story is still in progress, and any part of it may be changed without notice. Spoilers, notes and outline are here; Part II is here.

Part III

“So let me get this straight,” said Inspector Strand. “Dr. Mordeaux, last night you saw Miss Isaacs abduct this paperboy?”

Mordeaux sat up straight in his chair, folding both gloved hands over the top of his cane, and thrusting his luxuriantly whiskered chin directly at the inspector. He spoke with conviction and force.

“Yes,” he said. “As though I’d seen it with my own eyes.”

Strand nodded and began to write in his notebook. He, Mordeaux, Ashleigh, Frank, and several other officers were in the Inspector’s office (a rather dingy affair, decorated sallowly with yellow paint and bare wooden furniture, lit by windows barely less grimy than those at Ashleigh’s lab) making their statements.

“And so you — wait, what? As though? Doctor, did you see it happen, or not?”

“Just as I said.”

“He’s lying!” cried Ashleigh. “I did not abduct him! I have no idea where he is!”

“Doctor, this is a very serious accusation,” continued the Inspector.

“It is indeed,” said Mordeaux, frowning and shaking his head disapprovingly.

“We must be quite certain of your evidence.”

“Oh, you may rely upon it, sir.”

“But I didn’t do it!” cried Ashleigh.

“Miss Isaacs,” snapped Strand, “you will be silent or I’ll have you removed to a holding cell.” He sighed. “I apologize for asking again, then, sir, but I want to make sure it is very clear. Did you actually, with your own eyes, observe Ashleigh Isaacs kidnap this young boy?”

“Yes, she kidnapped him. Unequivicably.”

“Yes, you saw her, or yes, she kidnapped him?”

“Yes!” growled Mordeaux. “Inspector, I do not understand how our police department can afford to accommodate deaf officers. Either you are deaf or dumb or both, but I am a busy man simply trying to do his civic duty, and I will not be pestered all morning with repetitive questions.”

Strand began furiously writing in his notepad, muttering into his sideburns.

Note: this story is still in progress, and any part of it may be changed without notice. Spoilers, notes and outline are here; Part I is here.

Part II

When Franklin dashed in a second later, he was startled, but he didn’t scream. He’d been brought up as a Mohawk warrior; he’d seen plenty of dead bodies before. He ran back out, got some water from the sink, and brought it to Ashleigh. Ashleigh, who’d been brought up a lower-class woman of Boston, thought that if you were a female and you saw a dead body, you fainted; but somehow that didn’t happen. So she stopped screaming and accepted the water.

“How did he get here?” asked Franklin.

“I don’t know,” said Ashleigh. “I just woke up and saw him.” She cursed — not something she’d been brought up to do, but she found it useful, and Franklin didn’t mind. She emptied the glass and put it down. “My God! Who is he?”

Franklin knelt by the body. “He’s been dead maybe a week or two,” he said. “Looks like he may have died of a heart problem.” Gingerly he felt in the pockets of the rotten clothing. “Some coins here, not many. No purse, no cards… No way to tell who he is.”

“Why would anyone drag a dead body in here?” said Ashleigh. “Is it some kind of sick joke? A prank?”

“Maybe,” said Franklin. “It could have been a student who has access to a morgue.”

“A medical student,” said Ashleigh. “Maybe he’s still nearby, waiting to see how we’ll react.” She went to the door of the lab, which led directly out onto the street. It wasn’t a great place for a lab, really — there was a lot of traffic outside, and it wasn’t uncommon for curious passerby to stop and peer in the windows. But there was barely enough lab space for all the male students at MIT, much less the female students. She had to take what she could get.

The street was almost empty at this early hour, but she nearly tripped over a huge sack full of newspapers that had been dropped right by the door.

“Franklin! Look at this.” She bent down over the sack.

“What is it?”

“This is the newspaper sack that boy last night was carrying. See? The strap is cinched up for a boy to carry. And it was right here that I bumped into him. It’s just the bag he was carrying.”

“You bumped into a paper boy and he dropped his bag?”

“Well, he didn’t drop it right then. I was just taking a break from my project, and came out for a smoke, and almost walked right into him. He jumped aside and almost ran into Dr. Mordeaux.”

“Mordeaux! That was unlucky.”

“Oh yes, you should have seen the look he gave me.”

“So he was out here selling papers, and at some point he — what? He dropped his bag and ran off?”

“That would be odd; why would he just leave his papers? More likely he was attacked or kidnapped or something, and dropped the bag then.”

“But that’s awful.”

“Yes, we should call the police. And it — wait.”

Ashleigh held up a newspaper for Franklin to see. “Do you notice anything odd about this?”

He studied it a second. “It’s old,” he said. “It’s — dammit, Ashleigh, it’s from thirty years ago! It’s got dispatches from the War in it.” He grabbed one. “‘Our correspondent, reporting from Washington… President Lincoln said today…’ Are you sure this is the bag the boy was carrying?”

“Whose else would it be?”

“How should I know?” he demanded. “But why is he carrying a load of old papers?…”

“I don’t know.” Ashleigh sighed, stood, and turned back into the lab. “Bring the bag in; maybe the police will want to look at it. Faugh! The smell in here is getting bad.”

Franklin wrinkled his nose as he followed her. “It certainly is. Although — Ashleigh, the lab looks fantastic! Look at how clean everything is! Did you finish your project?”

Ashleigh looked around, beaming. “I certainly did. I worked on it most of the night, and finished it up in the early hours.” She patted the wood and brass torus on the workbench.

“What? I thought you were going to make a cleaning robot or something.”

“I was… but that turned out to be very complicated. I kept getting tripped up on things that should have been simple, like, you know, walking, picking things up without crushing them, seeing things properly… And I thought, why not just make use of the platonic brane? A simple aether-thinner should allow enough of the disentropic field to propogate — over a small area, at least.”

“But that’s ingenious! — Look at this! Even your books are organized! How much energy did it take?”

Ashleigh had been blushing with pride, but now she frowned. “Well, that’s the odd thing. It took a lot less than I was anticipating.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Sure, I suppose. But I’d rather know the why of it.”

Franklin sighed. “Well, I guess that’s three mysteries today. We have extra energy, an extra dead old man, and a missing boy.”

“The last two are for the police to solve,” said Ashleigh firmly. “Tell you what — you call them, and I’ll make us some coffee.”