Island of Icarus Read online

  Island of Icarus

  By Christine Danse

  Field Journal of Jonathan Orms, 1893

  En route to polite exile in the Galapagos Islands (field work, to quote the dean of my university), I have found myself marooned on a deserted tropical paradise. Deserted, that is, except for my savior, a mysterious American called Marcus. He is an inventor—and the proof of his greatness is the marvelous new clockwork arm he has created to replace the unsightly one that was ruined in my shipboard mishap.

  Marcus has a truly brilliant mind and the gentlest hands, which cause me to quiver in an unfamiliar but rather pleasant way. Surely it is only my craving for human companionship that draws me to this man, nothing more? He says a ship will pass this way in a few months, but I am welcome to stay as long as I like. The thought of leaving Marcus becomes more untenable with each passing day, though staying would be fatal to my career…

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  Dedication

  To my dear friend, Dena Celeste, the strongest person I know. Yes, you really are awesome. Many glomps to you!

  Acknowledgments

  A huge thanks to Nick, Dena, Rhianna, and my awesome editor, Alissa. Your inspiration and input have been invaluable.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  In the summer of 1893, the dean of the university came to me. It had been a long semester. Only a season had gone by since an unfortunate accident had taken my right arm. At that time, memories of the lady I would have married still ghosted my thoughts.

  I was taking the afternoon to organize my belongings in my office. Though I’d been in that office for a year, I still had boxes of books, curios, and practical supplies stacked against the wall. I was fretting over where to place my rather large collection of mounted insects when a light knock diverted my attention. The door was open, as I customarily left it, and the knock was only a courtesy. I turned to find the dean standing there, a sort of sympathetic smile on his face. The office was a right mess, and I stood like a survivor amongst rubble.

  “Luther, how are you?” I greeted him with a sheepish smile.

  “Jonathan,” he returned. He seemed to take in the room. “I see you’re redecorating.”

  “It’s been a year,” I said by way of explanation. “It’s about time I finally moved my things out of boxes.” I placed the case of scarab beetles—gorgeous multi-colored specimens—on a shelf and turned to him. “Can I help you?”

  “I was thinking we could grab a bit of lunch. There’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Of course,” I said, setting aside the rag I’d been using to wipe the cases. I’d a bit of a kink in my neck from standing with my head bowed for so long and found myself eager to escape the labor, self-imposed as it was. I combed my hair back, settled the hat on my head and drew a long glove over my right arm. Though it was impossible to conceal the bulk of the mechanical prosthetic, nor the shape of the brace that secured it in place over my upper arm and shoulder, the glove gave me a modicum of privacy in public.

  We strolled companionably to the pub across the street, a local haunt of students and professors, and lounged over drinks and light fare. At length, our polite discourse about the weather, students, and the food came to an end. Luther’s face settled into an expression of pensiveness.

  “Jon, have you ever given thought to traveling abroad?” he asked, somewhat abruptly.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Serious thought.”

  “Well, yes. I can’t imagine who hasn’t. I have thought of touring the Americas or the Far East. And it isn’t as if I have— Well, it’s not like I have family to tie me here. I suppose I never got around to seriously planning a holiday.”

  The furrow of his eyebrows deepened. “What would you say to a trip to the Galapagos? Darwin’s old stomping grounds.”

  I imagine my eyebrows jumped up like rabbits. “Oh! Well, with classes starting soon I can’t afford to take holiday…”

  “It wouldn’t be a holiday,” he said. “Rather, field work abroad. Under the employ of the university, of course.”

  My stomach tightened. “Well! I couldn’t— For how long?”

  “A year, maybe two. You might find that you quite like it.”

  I fell silent to ruminate. Luther sat quiet and tense, awaiting a response. “This isn’t an offer, is it?” I looked up at him. “That is to say, I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Jonathan— We think it might be good if you retired from the public view. For a little while, at least.”

  “It’s my right arm,” I said, a resigned understanding settling into my voice and manner. I looked down at the appendage and flexed the hand slowly. For clockwork, it responded well. I could even mimic my old handwriting, to an extent. However, the mechanisms were bulky, which made the appendage almost three times the girth of my left arm. The fingers were fat, much stiffer and less dexterous than organic ones. The arm also had the unfortunate habit of failing at inopportune times. It had died on me more than once during a lecture. It was high maintenance, unreliable, and it constantly made noise as the gears turned and clicked. Of course, I was grateful I had anything to call an arm at all.

  “Well, yes, your arm,” said Luther, ever honest. “But it’s more than that,” he continued. “You haven’t been the same man. The same professor. Jon, the students are worried about you. I’m worried about you. I think it might do you some good to get away from London and…society. Get back in touch with yourself. A man needs a little adventure in his life. And a break.”

  I looked away. My throat was closing. Cara’s leaving had left me oversensitive. I said, “Luther, I need this position. I need the students. I need my colleagues. I need my office and my lodgings and my housekeeper. I need them to hold me together. It’s something to live for. A reason to roll out
of bed in the morning. The last thing I need is a remote island with nothing but my thoughts for company.”

  “Just give it a try,” he urged. “It’s been more than three months, Jon, and you haven’t changed. Get out of London, away from all your ghosts here. The ship leaves in a week. Once you get there, if you don’t like it, another ship will be by in just a month. You have but to climb back on board and head straight back to England. But try it. Please. I ask as a friend.”

  How could I say no? I accepted under the express agreement that I could return when I willed. So, I found myself packing all of the things I had just finished unpacking and storing everything away in my home. The housekeeper agreed to visit once a day to feed the cat and to see that the old place didn’t fall apart while I was away. I could only imagine it gnawed to sawdust by vermin during my absence. My old fat cat, Ferrous, had stopped worrying himself with such nonsense as chasing rats years ago.

  Chapter Two

  The week went by like a dream. Every morning I woke up and took tea. I went to my office, which was all but bare now, and studied the Galapagos and Darwin’s book exhaustively until I returned home once again to sleep and start the cycle all over again. In the evenings I often sat with my pipe and the paper. More than once I found myself staring into the fire, wondering at the gentle amenities of civilization that would soon be lost to me. I tried to imagine myself weeks henceforth in a crude little hut surrounded by the most grotesque creatures in God’s creation, but the thought was just too unreal.

  Boarding the ship, too, was surreal. It was shortly after dawn when she set sail, too early for anyone to see me off. It was just as well. The morning was chill and damp, and I wanted to settle into my quarters below deck. The enormity of the adventure ahead of me did not register as I ascended onto the ship, nor when she was set loose, nor when the British coast faded from view. Perhaps I was too busy gathering my sea legs to think about it.

  Sailors are a superstitious lot. If I could have hid the whirring machine that had become my right arm, I would have, but it was impossible. I suffered more than one rude stare. When I could, I kept to myself, out of sight. To pass the time, I wrote incessantly in my journal.

  The weeks passed in a blur. I cannot relay how miserable that trip was, how lean and thirsty I was, how alone with my thoughts. A couple of years prior, before the French completion of the Panama Canal, the trip would have been almost infeasible—perhaps a year or more to travel where we did in three months. How Darwin spent five years aboard The Beagle, I do not know.

  I stirred from my den during our passage through the narrow canal to watch the land and trees slide by. Though The Commitment was by no means a large ship, the passage was still a squeeze. An eerie, tense silence fell over the crew. When we reached open ocean once more, the release of tension was palpable. Voices raised in relieved chatter, the sails went up, and I retired downstairs to my quarters once again.

  The islands of the Galapagos were not far now, a couple of weeks at most. When we were several days past the canal, a storm arrived. It came upon us like an angry god of the ocean and tossed us until I was sure the boat would be smashed into splinters. Until then we had been lucky with the weather, and—despite my agonizing—the voyage had moved rather swiftly. The small storms we had weathered until that point had been like children stirring in their sleep—nothing like the violent disturbance that seized us off the coast of South America.

  I spent most of the storm in the relative safety and dryness of my cabin. The boat pitched violently in the clutches of the squalling winds and bucking waves. All of my things rolled about like dice in a cup—and so did I. Books, pots, maps, specimens, clothing, me. I staggered back and forth in my quarters as if I was in the throes of drink, and I began to feel as sick as a drunkard, too. I began to think I would be safer on deck than in this rolling prison. On all fours, I crawled up the steps. It was all I could do to keep from being thrown from them. With a Herculean effort, I forced the door open against the firm pressure of the wind. Stinging rain pummeled my skin.

  Once I stepped from the door, the wind snatched it closed with a bang and then dragged me swiftly across the deck. From there, the details are hazy. Everything blurred together like a smeared chalk painting. The wind pulled me this way and that, and my arms windmilled frantically. The boat pitched and I fell the rest of the way toward the railing, which I hit with great force and clutched desperately. I believe I lost the contents of my stomach.

  I heard what may have been a shout ring out, and then the wind grabbed me up again as the boat dipped. A swell swept me off my feet. While the grip of my mechanical hand was stronger than that of my natural one, I might as well have not been holding on at all. The ocean was suddenly all around me. By the grace of God, I surfaced before I took a breath. I caught one last glimpse of the ship before the storm took her away from me, and me from her. It was the last I saw of the The Commitment and her crew.

  Chapter Three

  The ocean tossed and tugged me mercilessly. How I came to land, I cannot remember. How many minutes or hours I tumbled like driftwood, I cannot fathom.

  The next I can recall, all was silent, and dark and dry. I was cocooned in soft warmth. There was a curious feeling of lack, and then I realized I was absolutely still. No gentle rocking nor lively rolling of waves. Absolute stillness, and clean linens and my own breath, soft and steady.

  At length I stirred. Every muscle complained, and my left leg ached madly, but I took heart that everything moved—shoulders, legs, toes, fingers, neck. My left hand slid across the mattress over the linens, fingers splaying. But my right arm… My heart sank. If it hadn’t been destroyed by the water already, the remaining salt would surely deteriorate it. My right elbow felt like a club was attached to it, and it was sore at the place where the metal met flesh. I did feel the press of the prosthetic’s harness around my upper arm. This meant that the prosthetic itself was still attached, never mind the condition it was in.

  And where was I? Had this all been some nightmare?

  I caught an unfamiliar floral fragrance. This certainly was not home. I began to turn in bed. My eyelids, stuck together and now unused to being open, struggled apart. Soft yellow light.

  “Slowly, friend,” said a voice. Male, flat accent. American.

  He only startled me into moving faster. My eyes came all the way open and I saw the owner of the voice, a pleasant-seeming gentleman with straight, honest features. He sat near the bedside, watching me. A fringe of dark blond hair framed his face as he leaned forward with his arms propped on his knees. The posture suggested he had been waiting there for some time.

  I realized that under the linens I was naked. I knitted my eyebrows and struggled to find my voice. When I did, it was rusted and not at all mine. “Clothes?”

  “I had to cut them from you,” he said. “You were unconscious when I pulled you from the water. I needed to inspect you for injuries. I bathed you, as well.”

  A pang of embarrassment helped bring me back to myself. The memory of the trip and the storm came back to me. “There was a storm. I fell overboard.”

  “You’ve been unconscious for three days. It’s truly a miracle you are alive.”

  “Water,” I croaked.

  He stooped where he sat and a moment later he slid his hand under my head and brought a cup to my lips. I groped for it with my good hand. As I did, I choked, and water sprayed across my benefactor and the bed. Instantly he had me up, clapping me on the back.

  “You have to swallow, man!” he cried.

  “I think I’ve forgotten how,” I said raggedly between coughs. When I’d calmed down, I glanced at him. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  He chuckled and dabbed himself with a handkerchief. “It’s all right. Now that you’re sitting up, take this and drink it slowly. I can’t have my guest choking to death on a small glass of water after fishing him from the ocean.”

  I managed to appreciate the irony and grinned wanly in reply. I did as he told
me. As I finished, my eyes came to rest on my right arm, which I now realized was bandaged to the elbow. I swallowed and steeled myself. “My arm?”

  A flush of excitement seemed to come over the man. He licked his lips. “I’m sorry to inform you it was badly damaged by your experience.” I closed my eyes at the news. “However if you believe you can handle a bit more of a shock right now, you can unwrap it. I think you won’t be disappointed.”

  He took the cup from me and watched with anticipation as I unwrapped the muslin from my arm. As I did so, a picture show flashed through my mind. I imagined that my arm was mangled, or repaired but unsightly, or replaced with a wooden peg. My chest tightened with the same dread I’d felt when the surgeon had first revealed my mechanical arm to me more than half a year ago.

  The last of the wrappings slithered from my arm, and I don’t think anything could have prepared me for what I found: sleek polished brass, a slim hand, five slender digits tipped with steel. A new arm. A new arm, better than the last.

  “What do you think?” asked my host, looking anxious.

  “I…” I lifted the arm and slowly flexed my new fingers. They responded to me easily and curled naturally, fluidly. “You did this?”

  “Well, yes,” he said, almost sheepishly. “I took the liberty of first dismantling the original. It was some impressive engineering. I improved upon it.”

  “Improved. Yes.” I lifted my hands in front of me and flipped them back and forth, wonderingly. For the first time in over three months, my arms were the same size and shape, and both were equally responsive. I found myself mesmerized by the turning of a miniature gear just below the bend of the elbow.

  “How does it feel?” he asked eagerly.