A Slipper in the Smoke by Katherine Macdonald EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Katherine Macdonald
- Language: English
- Genre: Steampunk Science Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
THE GIRL WITH
THE GEARS
Her stepmother told her that Petragrad was her home now, but even
though she had been there almost six years, the steely, suffocating
city had never felt anything like home to Elena. Perhaps it might have come
to feel that way, had her father not died only a few months after they
relocated, had her step-family embraced her, had there been maybe just one,
tiny, small, minute thing she liked about the city…
But there wasn’t.
Far from the rolling fields of Navarra, Petragrad was stifling, loud,
cramped; a roving, creaking metropolis of gears and grease, a place where
smog was a touchable creature, as thick and movable as clay.
It was not her home.
It was her prison.
But not my coffin, Elena whispered to herself, walking through the lower
ring on her way home one evening, mask drawn up tight. Not my coffin, not
my coffin.
She thought of her father’s ashes on the mantelpiece in Baroness
Hernandez’ apartment, the tiny pewter container that held the earthly
remains of the person she’d loved most in the world.
It had been his coffin.
One day, Papa, I’m going home. And I will take you with me.
Her mother was buried beneath a tree in the grounds of what had once
been the Hernandez’ estate. She wanted to take him back there, to rest
beside her. The land no longer belonged to them, but she would find a way
to make it happen.
Nothing in the world belonged to her. Even the clothes on her back
weren’t hers, as the Baroness constantly reminded her.
“Elena, Elena, my little bee,” she’d croon, “everything you have is what I
have given you. Everything you have is what I can take away.”
Not forever, Baroness, Elena thought to herself. One day I shall be free of
you.
But the tickets back to Navarra being so expensive, Elena knew it might
be many years yet. The Baroness controlled all the finances. She’d tried to
set up her own bank account once, but the bank had required proof of
residency. The Baroness took care that Elena had nothing to her name. Not
one thing.
Nevertheless, Elena had a plan.
She’d always been good at fixing things. As a child, she’d watched the
farm hands fixing the harvest machines, saw how the intricate engine of
cogs and gears broke down into something simple, like the wooden shapes
of a children’s toy. Things slotted together easily in her head, and before
long she was skipping piano lessons to tinker in the barn. She watched
others to understand the basics, but mostly she learnt through trial and error,
through devising and experimenting.
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