A Heart for Copper

I want to find out who I am. I keep the key.

I met William’s gaze. We were as we had ever been: the windup doll and the young inventor. Self-propelled though I may be, a gulf still stretched between us.   

William tried and failed to conceal his disappointment with an anemic smile.

“Thank you.” My hand moved to my throat at the sound of the strange phonograph voice.  

A dry laugh scraped out of him. “For what?”

I raised my wood-and-wire hand before my face. “For making me. For giving me life.”

He lowered his gaze. “I wanted to give you ... so much more.”

An ache opened in my chest, as if its new inhabitant had fled. But I could feel its rhythmic movement. “I thank you for that too,” I said.  

“The world is open before you,” William said in a valiant attempt at recovering his former brightness. “Will you let me be your guide?”

How I longed to accept his offer. Had I not wished for this since the first turn of the winding key at my back?  

But I was not like him. I was bits and bobs and castaway things. I could never be more than a sort of pet to him, a curiosity. There would be novelty in my being able to talk and perhaps even walk with him, but one day he would outgrow me. He would move away, fall in love and marry, and I’d be forgotten. He would age and change and have children. Dutch would pass out of the world. But I would always be here, exactly as I was in this moment.

“I have to go,” I said softly. “I have to ...” How could I make him understand? “I have to find out something about myself. If I stay here, I don’t think I will.”

A dark cloud settled over his brow. The rains gathered in his eyes, and it was more than I could bear.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked, hurrying for the door.

“Wait, Copper.”

I tried to ignore his plea, but my legs stopped working before I’d crossed the threshold. I reached up and gripped the door frame.

He moved closer and I held still, scarcely breathing.

“You don’t need this anymore,” he said, voice heavy with emotion. I felt a tug at my back and realized he was removing the windup key.

It clattered onto his workbench. “There.”

“I’ll never forget you,” I whispered, not daring to turn for a last look at him.

Then I fled.

***

I ran through the garden behind his workshop, heedless of who might see me. Plunging into the trees beyond, I tripped over a tree root and pitched forward, landing hard on the packed earth of the footpath. I dug my fingers into the dirt, feeling its grainy texture, smelling the sharp mingling of minerals and decayed vegetation. Sunlight filtered through the trees, warming my back.

I pushed up to my feet, testing my legs with a couple of slow steps. Tucking a loose strip of fabric back in at my elbow. My bare feet thudded against the ground as I continued, slowing only when the wood thickened to forest.

Branches tore at my clothing, and my limbs caught in hedges as I continued toward the sound of running water. I came to a stream and crossed a footbridge, forging on until fighting my way through the undergrowth had exhausted me.

I collapsed onto a bed of ivy, panting. Safe from discovery in the foliage-born twilight, I watched the rise and fall of my chest, wondering at the miracle that had brought me to life. My insides were no more than gears and belts. I could feel them turning as I ran. What need had I to breathe? Lacking the appropriate organs, how was it possible?