“S-she is your counterpart,” he says. “You were found together among the spoils of a broken sheikdom on the far steppes. I suspect those barbarians stole you in a raid from somewhere else, perhaps from the ancient ones beyond the Great Wall.
“Tsar Peter discovered your remains in the palace armory, where they had lain for ages. Catherine insisted on your destruction, but he denied her and insisted on your resurrection. Though I may have rebuilt you, the tsar is your patron and father.”
I step forward and crouch, squatting. Her gaze follows me. No emotion is betrayed by her expressionless face, but her clockwork pulse quickens.
“Why is she made to look like a child?”
Favo gestures to two small stiletto-like daggers lying on his workbench. They are both made of dull steel with bone handles, child size.
“She was found with these daggers. Perhaps she was an assassin? Much knowledge has been lost, but her form itself is illuminating…you share many features. By studying her smaller frame, I was able to bid you into this world. And now…now she joins us as well.”
“Is she simple, like a child?” I ask.
“I am not simple,” she says, her jaw clicking. She slides to the edge of the chair. Feet dangling, she drops lightly to the floor.
“And I am not a child,” she adds, lowering her forehead. It is a threatening gesture, yet I sense grim amusement. She glares up at me without embarrassment or fear.
I peer into those black pits she sees out of, considering.
“Tell me your name,” I demand.
The porcelain doll takes a step back.
Slowly, deliberately, she reaches down to grasp her dress on either side. Eyes trained on mine, her fingertips tap together delicately. One foot deftly sweeps behind the other, and she bends her knee and curtsies.
“By the grace of the tsar, I am called Elena Petrovna,” she says.
The old man is beaming.
“My friend,” he says. “She is your sister.”
5
OREGON, PRESENT
Oleg is smoking a hand-rolled cigarette on the cracked sidewalk outside my motel room. I can see his silhouette as he paces, blinking back and forth between cheap vinyl blinds that hang like old flypaper. In a fake leather jacket, the middle-aged man is speaking rapid-fire Ukrainian into a mobile phone, waving his hand and spitting foul smoke.
Beyond him, the tall pines of the Willamette Valley sway against a gray sky. For someone from the brick suburbs of Tulsa, the world out here feels oversaturated with the color green and the scent of trees and rain. The white crown of Mount Hood looms on the horizon, scowling through clouds, intimidating to a kid who grew up on grassy plains under blue skies.
Outside, Oleg says that word again: avtomat.
I half smile to myself, remembering the surprise on his face as I coaxed a centuries-old message out of the vandalized automaton. That’s the reason Kunlun pays for my travel, I think, sending me crisscrossing over North America with an occasional foray to Europe—to give a voice to long-silent artifacts.
Glancing at a spotted mirror permanently mounted to the beige-painted concrete block wall, I see my reflection. It’s pretty obvious I’ve been on the road for weeks. But the message I found in that doll has made it all worthwhile—not just the trip but the empty apartment, the crummy post as a research scientist, and the disappointed looks from my parents on my yearly visit home.
Today, I witnessed a moment that stretched back three centuries.
Something moves in the mirror. Oleg has appeared in the doorway, standing hunch shouldered, a half-smoked cigarette smoldering on the sidewalk behind him.
“Kunlun called,” he says.
“Great. Did you tell them what we found—”
“Yes, yes,” he says, waving a hand impatiently. He is looking at the wall just over my shoulder, not meeting my eyes. “They have decided to end their support.”
“What—”
“A person is coming to collect Kunlun materials. We are told to wait here.”
I’m in shock for a long moment. Without funding, field research is impossible. There is no way I can afford technology like this on my own. I’ll be stuck teaching introductory courses back at the university, or fired altogether.
I sit on the dresser and take a deep, shaky breath.
“Very sorry, Miss June,” says Oleg, head lowered.
“Fuck,” I say to myself, leaning my back against the dirty mirror. By reflex, I press my fingers against the reassuring curve of my grandfather’s relic where it hangs under my shirt. “Why would they do this? Why now?”
From the open motel door, I smell rain and cigarette smoke.
“You must wait and ask the person. It is bad news, I know,” he says, pulling a sweating bottle of vodka out of a brown paper bag.
“You just carry that around?” I ask.
The man shrugs, motions with his shoulders.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, Oleg,” I say. “Come in.”
The Ukrainian enters and sits on a low air-conditioning unit sticking out of the wall below the window. He drops the butt of the vodka bottle onto the rusting metal. The screw top comes off with a twist of his palm. He pours shots into a pair of thin white plastic hotel cups. Picks them up with thick fingers and offers me one.
My hands are shaking as I take the cup from him.
“Did they give any explanation?” I ask.
Oleg shrugs and stands up, lifts his cup.
“Budmo,” he says, downing his shot.
I down the shot and hand him the empty plastic cup.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Something I want to ask,” he says, sitting again, not looking at me. “You talk about a power supply on the doll. How did you know what might fit in that spot?”
He is already pouring another pair of shots, holding the bottle neck like a bicycle handle, not spilling a drop. The white plastic cups shiver as the clear liquid surges into them. He hands the small cup back to me, full.
“Budmo,” repeats Oleg, half standing, tossing his shot back immediately.
“I’ve been studying these things a long time,” I say, with a smile that feels like a grimace. “I had a hunch.”
Oleg cocks an eyebrow at me.
“But why study this? It is very old, yes? Just junk. Why do you care?”
I look at my slender legs in dirty jeans, my boots planted on the thin motel room carpet. Everything I’ve worked for in my career is ending. The court automata I study are either destroyed or locked in private collections around the world. Without support, I’m not a real scientist anymore—just a lady with a really weird hobby.
Locking my jaw against the sting of alcohol, I down the second shot.
“My grandfather. When I was a kid, he got me started.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, he fought for Russia in World War Two,” I say. “And he came back with a lot of interesting stories. About history, and other things.”
Oleg nods, watching me closely. Something dark has settled into his expression. Something quiet and still.
“And what is this story?” he asks, enunciating carefully.
The heat of the vodka is crawling between my collarbones, spreading through my sternum and into my belly. I can feel my cheeks flushing. My grandfather’s stern face flashes in my mind. Tell no one.