Okay, I know I said I would have episode 1 in your inbox on Saturday. I apologize. Sometimes the best laid plans are the easiest to derail.
I had a very scary moment with my dog on Saturday afternoon- she was almost hit by a car- and it undid me.
For those who don’t know me well, I am a dog trainer by trade. I was leaving a class and my mini Australian Shepherd, Maizee, somehow slipped out while I put my bag in the back, and got spooked in a very scary parking lot.
She is fine. I am fine (thanks to a wonderful friend who let me fall apart a little- okay, a lot- after it happened.) But I was pretty useless for the rest of the night. Honestly, I was strategizing my new training plan so this never, never, never happens again.
BUT- as promised, here it is: The Adventures of Verity Cogswell, episode 1
I hope you enjoy!
Faeries, alchemy, and mechanics all collide in Verity’s world as she comes of age. Join her as she travels towards Aethos, City of Wonders, and her future at the Universitarium of Alchemy and Mechanics. That is, if she can dodge her determined mother and the Brilliant Match she has planned…
Dearest Uncle Del,
Father has informed me of your return from your explorations in the jungles of Pergonia. I hear this latest excursion netted you the title of Best Traveled Mechanist in all of Victurnia. Congratulations! We must celebrate your victory. To that end I have secured a birthday visit to Cavill House in Aethos. My first time in the City of Wonders! I love the green hills and forests of Cavill Green, but to gaze upon the steel and stone landscape of Aethos will be incredible.
Mother was against it at first, but Father agrees, at sixteen I am now old enough to experience the wonders of a mechanical city. She has sent Nanny the Fifth ahead to open up the house for us. Father is already there, of course, working. Mother and I will join him in three weeks.
Here is the reason for my letter. I know you believe in me and my endeavors to become an explorer and inventor just like yourself. In order to fulfill my destiny I must gain entrance to the Universitarium of Mechanics and Alchemy. It is my hope you can secure me a place in the Exhibition of Potential Wonders at the City Fair next month so I can prove my worth and gain an invitation to study. I have something, Dear Uncle, something that will change the world. After all, as you say, “Change the world, change your life.” I intend to do both.
Please talk to Father and let him know of my plans and potential. Mother is rumbling on about a Season and looking for a Match so there is no help in that quarter. You are my only hope.
Counting the days until we are sitting by the fire in Cavill House playing Stones and Fifths,
Your affectionate
Verity
“This is utterly ridiculous.”
Verity stared in horror at the crumpled parchment in her mothers grip. The parchment that was supposed to be in Uncle Del’s hands two and a half weeks prior. Not still in her family’s dining room, and certainly not in the hands of the enemy. All hope flew into the fireplace with the letter as Mother pointedly tossed it in to be devoured by flames.
Verity started to speak, but her voice failed her. She cleared her throat and tried again. “How did you get that?”
“It matters not. The question is, how dare you intend to bother your very busy uncle and father with silly schoolgirl dreams that can never be?”
“My dreams are not silly!”
Mother sniffed with disdain. “Impossible, then. Your future is already decided. I have secured you a spot in Mather’s Finishing School located in Aethos. After a short holiday, you will attend to your education and be presented as a Desirable at the Royal Set this Season.
Verity gasped for breath. Mather’s Finishing School? The place was well known in Cavill Green as the most expeditious place for young ladies to prepare for the marriage mart. Which, to her mind, was little better than training to be a lifelong prisoner.
And the Royal Set- a collection of balls and lunches that were no better than a cattle call for the eligible ladies of the city. The thought of being paraded in front of men like a prize heifer made her stomach sour. She gripped the edge of the polished mahogany table so tight she was surprised the wood didn’t crack.
“Mother, I am sixteen and no longer a child. I am old enough to decide my own future.”
“You are old enough to realize you have a duty to this family and it does not include flitting off to the Universitarium to fill your brain with useless knowledge.”
“Useless...!” Verity pressed her lips together. She knew by the set of her mother’s chin that the conversation was over. No matter. There were better ways to dodge her ‘duties’ than arguing. “Very well. I’m going to the stable to see to Bolt.”
“I told you there is no need for that contraption in the city. We have the carriage.”
“I want to say goodbye.”
Mother narrowed her eyes, her fingers ever so slightly spasming against her striped navy and cream damask skirt. But all she said was, “Governess Holden will be waiting by the carriage for you. Don’t lollygag around.”
Verity blinked. “I thought she had gone ahead to open the house.”
Verity secretly and unaffectionately called Governess Holden ‘Nanny the Fifth’ because she was the latest in a series of nannies secured to try to harness Verity into the yoke of feminine deportment. The others had all run screaming. Unfortunately, Nanny the Fifth was built of sterner stuff. Like a warship. Or an over-inflated dirigible. The lady’s proper linen skirts certainly flapped in the breeze like an airship’s sails when she chased after her errant student.
“I sent for her the moment the letter fell into my hands. I won’t have you running off towards the city without a proper chaperone to guide you.”
“I thought you were coming with me?”
“I have been detained. I must assist the neighbors and help Mrs. Kennedy with a problem in her household.”
You are afraid you cannot control me, is what you mean, Verity thought uncharitably. Very well. Nanny the Fifth was simply another obstacle to overcome. She would rise, and she would prevail.
“I do have wonderful news.” Mother’s eyes brightened as she turned to an ornate silver tray set on the mahogany sideboard and poured tea into a delicate pink and white china cup. She set the pot down without offering any to Verity. “A whirbird arrived today. Your sister is coming home for a visit. I will stay to welcome her and we will join you in the city together. Perhaps the influence of an accomplished older sister will reform you.”
Verity was stung into silence. Brittany. Of course, mother would forgo a trip to Aethos with her to welcome her perfectly beautiful, perfectly mannered, perfectly perfect older sister.
Nearly eighteen years old, Brittany Quinn-Peck was the crowning jewel of their parents’ achievements. She was Head Girl at the elite Sotheby’s Ladies Academy, set to finish her second and final year and shine as the bell of the Season this summer.
Heat flushed her cheeks at the ridiculous contradiction in feelings. She was thrilled to be going on with only one chaperone. All the better to execute her plans. But a niggling pain wormed its way into her heart, knowing her mother’s preference in daughters.
She spun abruptly, brushing nonexistent crumbs from her skirt, and left her mother staring at her back without another word. No less than she deserved from the cold reception her mother had given her brilliant plan.
In the stable, the hands were preparing the carriage for her trip to Cavill House. She frowned in distaste. Imagine, her first triumphant excursion to Aethos, City of Wonders, where steam cars and balloons and the most modern airships abound and she was arriving in a dated coach and four. It wasn’t to be borne. And if she had anything to say about it, wouldn’t be happening.
Verity skirted the carriage, nodding to Spokes the barnmaster and the lads who polished the brass trimmings on the door. Careful to wait until she garnered no attention, she slipped into the tack room in the back. It was a moment’s work to find the latch- there, hidden by the top row of saddles- and trip the secret door that slid open behind the grain bin. She disappeared into the musty darkness and swiftly pulled the door shut.
The muffled sounds of horses shuffling in their stalls and grooms speaking to one another in the corridor sifted through the walls as she slipped through the dim passageway, twitching her skirts this way and that to avoid spider webs and dust until finally the walls opened up. The long, rather thin chamber was windowless, but lit by the glowing blue orbs of Uncle Del’s design, using bioluminescent algae he’d discovered in a mountain cave in the tropic region of the Cantula Archipelago.
When she was little and looking for ways to escape Nanny the Second and her insufferable deportment lessons, Uncle Del, in a fit of helpfulness, had shared this gem of a secret with her. Here was a place she could escape to when she needed to get away from the pressures and demands of being a lady in training.
The room was small, no larger than her bedroom. Shelves lined the walls on three sides, stacked tip to toe in dusty tomes of alchemy and mechanics, except for one. That one held jars and tins of powders, liquids, and strange bits of crystal- even one jar Verity would bet her allowance held a pickled brain. There were also piles of various gears, bolts, and other metal parts from projects started and abandoned through the years.
The fourth wall held the door, and a desk covered in parchment, quills and ink, and pencils, both charcoal and lead, for journaling and sketching and recording project results.
It was everything an inventor could wish for, if one knew what one was doing.
Unfortunately, Verity did not. But coming here made her long to discover the secrets held within. The bottles of tinctures and powders were labeled in a system she didn’t understand, using symbols instead of letters. And while the books held knowledge of recipes and methods, they didn’t hold the key to decode the ciphered symbols.
So, while she cherished the trust and esteem her Uncle Del granted her by giving her access to his hidden space, her frustration grew sharper every day that she could no more join him in his studies now than she could before.
Not for long, though. She strode with purpose to the trunk in the corner, unlatching the brass catch and lifting the lid. From inside, she pulled a shoulder satchel and a fat beaded purse. These were tickets to a new life, she was sure, and she wouldn’t be held back from cashing them in any longer.
If Mother refused to bring her to the City Fair to try her invention, then she would use the ingenuity God gave her and bring herself. After all, the clergy said God helps him who helps himself. She could only assume an intelligent God would also include the fairer sex in that sentiment.
She opened the satchel and peered inside at the jumble of gears and gray metal within. It didn’t look like much. A layperson would scoff and dismiss her innovations out of hand. But an Aethos ambassador, perhaps even a scholar from the Universitarium itself, would understand the possibilities her invention presented. They would applaud her work and offer her a scholarship to study with them. They had to. She would make them.
With a determined press of her lips, she pulled the only vials of powder and liquid she recognized on sight from the shelf and tucked them into the pocket of her skirt. Next, she slipped the beaded purse- full of her allowance from the last six weeks into the satchel.
Quickly she pulled off her skirts- careful not to jostle the vials, and stepped into the trousers she had hidden at the bottom of the trunk, commissioned in secret at her last trip to the modiste, made to match her most comfortable brown lamb leather corset, which she wore over a cream ruffled shirtwaist.
It had cost her a box of premium sugar tarts and one silk handkerchief to convince the maid to hide her purchase from Mother, a cost she happily paid. They were form fitting and comfortable, much better for riding into the city. Once there, she would make haste to find a suitable outfit for the City Fair.
She paused a moment, mourning the loss of four beautiful gowns packed in her traveling trunks she would never wear, but there was nothing for it. For speed’s sake, she dare not try to drag along a wardrobe on her escape.
The skirt went on over the trousers and she tucked in her shirtwaist, wiggling and smoothing the material until it was impossible to tell what she was wearing underneath.
She shouldered the satchel and slipped back out the door, but not before grabbing two thick tomes from the shelf, her favorites, one filled with the basics of alchemy, the other a primer in automaton mechanics. The extra weight would be worth it.
Back in the tack room, she watched the hidden door slide shut. “I’ll make you proud, Uncle Del,” she whispered with conviction. “You’ll see.”
Then, as the grooms led the carriage and four out to gather her for her trip to Cavill House, she scurried to the workroom that housed her pride and joy, Bolt, the automaton hackney pony.
Bolt was a gift from her uncle when she turned fifteen the year before: a fully operational gastrobot created as both transportation and a clever method of farm management.
The gastrobot, literally translating to ‘stomach robot,’ powered itself by consuming biological matter, digesting it in its clever internal system, utilizing the electrical energy created, and excreting the waste. In essence, Bolt was a true automaton horse who grazed, digested, and pooped like any other horse. Uncle Del had won top prize for his ingenious innovation, and Verity had received the prototype for her own enjoyment.
Her father, who at first balked at the idea of his daughter racing around on a metal horse, was easily persuaded to change his mind when Uncle Del showed him the dials on Bolt’s inner leg which allowed one to choose any of twelve invasive species of plant matter to be targeted by the machine.
They struck the agreement that he could stay as long as he was turned out into mother’s extensive flower gardens each night to devour unwanted weeds. Verity was happy to oblige if she got to keep the mechanical horse.
Bolt’s slender neck and body were a wonder of machinery, a beautiful combination of brass and iron, intricately hammered to imitate the look of horsehair, with brass fittings and gears in his joints. Riding him was a dream, his high stepping and flashy gaits just as smooth and ground eating as a real horse.
She ran a hand down his gleaming metal legs and lifted his brass hooves one at a time to check for stones under the shock-absorbing horseshoes. Finding none, she attached her satchel to a loop on the back of his brown leather saddle and flipped the power switch under his left elbow. If he had been grazing all night, he should be fully charged and ready to go.
True to form, the equine wonder came to life. His well-oiled gears clicked softly as he turned his face and nudged her like a real hackney might. She patted his metal forelock affectionately and took up the reins. Another superior trait of automaton horses? They could keep their gear on and be ready to ride at a moment’s notice.
Verity spent as long as she could oiling his gears and polishing his gleaming body. As she finished going over his silver mane and tail with a soft cloth, Spokes yelled to the other grooms.
“Alright then, lads? Let’s be off! Daylight’s wasting.”
It was time.
Kneeling by Bolt’s left foreleg, she found the small panel by the on switch and opened it. She yanked several pieces of honey brown hair from her head, wincing at the twinging pain, twisted them together in a knot, and slipped it into the compartment. To the side was a small button which she pushed and held until she heard a small click and chime. She closed the panel and stood with a smile.
The last time Uncle Del visited he added an upgrade to Bolt’s system, a tracking device that would allow the automaton to find her if they were ever separated, invented to help people of means hold on to their investments should they fall from their mechanical horses mid-ride. Verity had no idea how the thing worked, but she thought it was brilliant anyhow, and would lend itself perfectly to her plan today.
“There. Now you will find me wherever I am,” she said with satisfaction. “It will only be a matter of time before I take destiny into my own hands, and bugger the consequences.”
She led Bolt out the back and pointed him into the woods, trusting in the tracking system to bring him back around the right way. Her last view of him was his high stepping haunches disappearing into the alder bushes near the gardener’s shack. Then it was back to the house at a trot and through the front doors, trying hard not to look like she’d been exerting herself.
“Are you ready to leave, dear?”
Mother appeared in the foyer wearing her riding apparel. Verity’s heart stuttered.
“Are you coming with us, then?” she said in what she hoped was a mildly interested tone, but what she feared sounded more like a frog’s croak. It was one thing to deceive one of her maternal guards. Both of them ganging up on her might be more than she could withstand. She would find herself well and truly guarded until they delivered her to Mather’s Finishing School like a trussed up chicken.
“Don’t be silly. I told you I am due at Mrs. Kennedy’s house shortly.” Mother waved a glove in dismissal. “Now, I expect you to conduct yourself as a lady. This will be your first introduction to Society, Verity. It is important that you make a good show.”
Was there a tinge of anxiety in Mother’s voice? Verity had never sensed that emotion from the woman. She wondered at its presence now.
“Promise me you will do your best, dear.” Mother folded her gloved hands in front of her and waited.
“I promise.” I promise I will do my best to secure my future at the Universitarium.
“Good. You are to send a whirbird as soon as you arrive safely. And remember to stay safe inside the carriage until you are through the Wood. You never know how or when faeries will attack.”
“Uncle Del says that faeries are not mindless beasts attacking humans at random.”
“Tell that to Mrs. Doherty in the mercantile. Her brother’s nephew tried traveling through the wood to Aethos last fall. He never made it there, and hasn’t been seen since. What are we to assume if not faeries?”
“Didn’t the Doherty’s expect their son to take over the mercantile while he wanted to study music? Who’s to say he isn’t alive and well, hiding out in a music school in the city?”
Mother huffed and waved a dismissive hand. “Ridiculous. You just stay in that carriage until you are well inside the city walls.”
Verity’s eyes grew big at the mention of Aethos. “I don’t see why we can’t just commission a balloon to fly us over the forest. It would be faster and safer.”
Soaring above the trees in a hot-air balloon would be almost as good as riding one of Aethos’ famed thermal air taxis.
Mother pressed her lips together, her brow pinched together over somber brown eyes. “It is a waste of money and a perfectly good carriage.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Verity bit back her irritation and gave her mother a quick hug. “I’ll see you soon.”
Nanny the Fifth waited by the carriage as promised, in all her starched and frowning glory.
Verity sighed as she approached, unconsciously dropping her shoulders down and back. Her head rose as the woman glowered at her less than perfect posture.
“I have set up lunches with the daughters of your father’s colleagues for the next three days. I expect you to be prompt and polite. Have you been practicing your social conversations?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Verity grumbled, stepping up into the carriage. She sank into the plush velvet seat. The governess followed and settled on the opposite seat. “Why anyone needs to practice making conversation is beyond me. If the conversation doesn’t flow naturally, wouldn’t it be better to find someone else more interesting to talk to?”
Crack!
Verity hissed as the folded fan Nanny the Fifth carried as a weapon descended sharply across her knuckles.
“Enough of your cheek. We have two hours before we stop for lunch. We will practice your Dengelese until then.”
“Please, can’t we practice social conversations instead?”
Crack!
Verity bit back a litany of words which were not at all social. She stared up at the ceiling and begrudgingly started conjugating verbs in the difficult language. The carriage moved forward with a jolt, and even the fan of doom couldn’t keep Verity from sticking her head out the window to watch Cavill Green grow smaller behind them. Then she looked forward towards the dark shadow of the Tricksy Wood rising in the distance. Her heart grew light at the thought that her future was finally rising to meet her as well.
Always here for you ❤️