“Yes,” he whispers. “In your mind. Reach inside and tell me the first thing. The first word you ever knew. What is your Word, my son?”
I find a hard honesty to the limits of my body—to the solid press of my flesh and the clenching strength of my grip. Pushing into my mind, I search for the answer to Favo’s question and find another principle, incontrovertible, even stronger than that of my flesh. It is the reason for my being—a singular purpose hewn into the stone of my mind.
There is a word that is the shape of my life.
I set my eyes upon the old man, and the leather of my lips scratches as I say the Word out loud for the first time.
“Pravda,” I say. “I am the unity of truth and justice.”
3
OREGON, PRESENT
As I continue working, it hits me: Oleg’s flat dismissal of the court automaton as a simple doll, a child’s toy, has really irked me. I know it’s pointless to lecture—the guy has the imagination of a boulder—but part of me wants to convince him, to show everybody, really, that this little girl means something.
“Okay, Oleg, so we don’t have solid written records of the earliest automata,” I say, laying the heavy camera on the table and lifting my penlight to inspect the automaton’s interior workings. “But that doesn’t mean the legends aren’t true.”
Oleg grunts, noncommittal.
“Albertus Magnus. A thirteenth-century Dominican monk. There are eyewitness reports that he built an artificial man out of brass that could talk. Thomas Aquinas is said to have personally destroyed it with a hammer as an affront to God.”
“Good for him,” says Oleg. “We are God’s creations. We cannot be replicated.”
Outside, the rain is coming down harder. Distant, grumbling peals of thunder waver beyond leaded-glass windows.
“A popular point of view,” I say. “That’s why the Old Believers search out these automatons. They believe our bodies are mansions for our souls, and artifacts like these pose a valuable question.”
With the doll lying on her face, I notice an abrasion on her tiny porcelain palm. I turn her narrow wrist between my thumb and forefinger.
“What question?” asks Oleg.
“If we built our own mansions, could God give them a soul?”
Lightning flashes somewhere far away, revealing a crease along the doll’s wrist.
Now, I understand—this device is designed to write a message. The scraped spot must be an attachment point for a writing instrument. Through my thin gloves, I can feel a ridge that could have once fastened to a quill pen. All the brass hardware, still untarnished, has a purpose. At its heart, this automaton is a piece of equipment designed to share a message in a deceivingly simple way—by literally writing it.
“God gives us all a purpose, Oleg,” I say, smiling up at him. “Let’s find out what hers was.”
Squinting, I use the probe to walk myself through her anatomy. The logic that makes her work is timeless; it feels to me like a connection to another mind, from another age. It’s only as I trace through each part of her that I begin to notice an absence. Like a black hole—only visible by the stars affected around it—I can see now that the inner workings of the doll terminate in an empty space. Something crucial is missing.
There is a hole where her heart should be.
My cheeks heat up with sudden adrenaline as I push the penlight deeper into the hole. The gear mechanism is untouched. None of the machinery damaged. But there is a gap where something important has been ripped out of the doll’s frame. I drop the probe on the table, sit back with my shoulders slumped.
For so many years I have been looking into the past, searching for the sense of awe I felt as a kid. But every time I get close to catching that spark, it flickers away. Putting an artifact on a shelf isn’t enough. I need to make them work—to take something lost and make it found. I want to see what people saw five hundred years ago, and feel the same wonder.
Maybe I was just born too late.
Looking back at the innocent doll, her face radiant in the lamplight, I sit up straight and lean closer. Clamping my fingers on the probe, I push back into her body and inspect the cavity one more time.
“Damn,” I whisper.
A few bright gashes mar the metal. The marks haven’t oxidized, which means this happened recently. I turn the doll over and she smiles up at me, unperturbed. Her cheeks and pursed lips shine a faded red. But whatever makes her work is gone. Someone has come here and cut out her heart. My mind strays back to the odd word the Old Believer used: wolves.
I drop the probe and penlight on the desk.
“She’s been modified,” I say to the room. “Someone damaged her.”
At the door, the Old Believer launches into a quiet prayer.
The faithful would never mutilate their own artifact. This commune immigrated here from Brazil more than a hundred years ago, along with their rare books and treasures. Lately, the Old Believers have taken to digitizing their collections, instead of copying and recopying them. But the items in this alcove are just as precious to the church now as they were three hundred years ago.
The Old Believer stands near the doorway, eyes lost in shadow above his beard. He doesn’t seem to notice me anymore. Beard twitching as his lips move, his chanting is absorbed by the thick carpet and curtains, by walls stacked floor to ceiling with books.
“Who was here?” I ask him. “Who could have done this?”
Lightning brightens the sky outside, somewhere far away. The windows quiver in their frames as thunder growls through the forest.
I clasp my hands together and take a deep breath.
“Miss June?” asks Oleg. “Is it okay?”
The small man watches me, nervous. He stretches pale lips over nicotine-stained teeth, trying to reassure me. I push a lock of stray hair over my ear and lift the porcelain doll to show Oleg the gaping hole in her back.
“Ask him if this is new damage,” I say, looking over Oleg’s shoulder to where the Old Believer stands, rocking as he prays.
“Hey? Is this new?” I call to him.
The Old Believer takes a step closer.
“Who did this?” I ask. “Did someone else come here?”
The man’s eyes widen over his bushy beard.
“Nyet,” says the Old Believer, shaking his head. “Nyet, nyet, nyet.”
With one hand he covers his face, making the sign of the cross over his chest with the other. He lumbers over to the row of high windows. Begins to tug on the brass poles that open them, shaking them to make sure they are locked. Raindrops thump into the glass like fat moths, the room quiet and stuffy under the sharp smell of ozone.
“That’s not good,” says Oleg. “He doesn’t know.”
“Grab my big duffel bag from the pews,” I tell Oleg.
Oleg flashes me a doubtful look, then turns and goes.
I drag a spidery black surgical headlight from my tool roll, pulling it onto my forehead as Oleg lumbers back into the room. He drops the heavy black bag at my feet, emblazoned with logos from the Kunlun Foundation.