“Well, that’s a difficult question,” said Esben, in reply to the first query to come from the mechanical boy’s reborn consciousness. “Like, in what sense?”
The boy, Alexei, the mechanical boy prince, the heir apparent to the Pittock Mansion, pushed himself up on his elbows as each joint whined noisily from years of disuse; Martha kindly doused each complaining hinge with the oil can as he shifted. He swiveled his head on his neck, a telescoping metal conduit, and surveyed his new surroundings. He looked at the bear, the boy’s face still betraying no sign of understanding or emotion. “Why did you do this?”
“Do what?” asked the bear.
His eyes, while still being the cold eyes of a machine, caught the bear’s gaze and fixed him with a look of intense betrayal. “Why did you do this to me?”
The bear, clearly out of his depth, stepped back from the table, abashed. Carol moved forward. “We’re your makers, Alexei,” he said. “We made you.” He motioned to Esben, though he’d only managed to indicate the air beside the bear, who helpfully stepped sideways so as to meet the old man’s gesture.
“You did this?” asked the boy. His voice was calm and soft; the slightest tinge of an echo was the only thing to suggest that the sound had originated from a metal container. Otherwise, it sounded like a boy’s voice.
Esben nodded.
“Then you can unmake me,” said Alexei.
“But . . . ,” stammered Esben, surprised. “We went through a lot of trouble. And not just us, but . . . a lot of people.”
“No one asked me,” said the boy matter-of-factly.
“Well, no. But—” said Esben, but Carol interrupted.
“You’re alive, Alexei! Again! Smell the air. Feel the ground beneath you,” said the old man, the emotion rising in his voice. He stamped his feet a few times against the soft turf of the ivy bed, as if to illustrate.
The boy marked the change that had overtaken the landscape. “What’s happened?”
“Your mother,” replied Esben. “She’s, well, she’s gone a little crazy.”
“My mother?” Alexei processed the word slowly, as if having to reconstruct the reality he’d previously lived piece by piece. “My mother.”
“She’s become a part of the ivy. It’s a little messy,” said Carol.
“But not only that—there was a kind of prophecy involved. You were meant to come back and, well, set things to rights.” Saying this, Esben made quick, uncertain eye contact with Seamus and Martha. He was clearly winging it; none of them had foreseen the mechanical boy taking his revival so poorly. “I think I’m getting that all right. You’d have to talk to Prue to get all the details.”
The boy on the table only looked blankly at the individuals surrounding him; they all squirmed a little in his gaze.
“Thing is,” put in Seamus, affecting a quiet and polite tack, “we kind of have to get a move on if we want to stop her. She’s already pretty far gone. And we’re supposed to meet up with the rest of the gang in North Wood. So we should probably . . .” Here he made a kind of sweeping motion with his hands toward the northern edge of the meadow.
A silence settled over the gathering. Finally, Alexei said, “Can I have a moment?”
“Oh sure, sure,” replied Esben.
“Just not, you know, too long,” put in Seamus. Everyone’s glare at the bandit seemed to out-wither one another’s. Martha inked the automaton’s knee and ankle joints with oil, and he threw his legs over the side of the table and, pushing away from his seat, took his first tentative steps. He looked down at his metallic body, all rivets and plating, and said:
“Could I get some clothes in the meantime?”
They all rushed to retrieve his regal uniform, which Martha had folded neatly and laid in a pile at the base of the table. It resembled a strange coronation, this dressing of the Governor-Regent apparent, but soon he was back in his princely costume. He gave a curt nod to his dressers before walking some yards off to an ivy-covered rock, and there he sat, his chin in his hands.
He sat there for a long time.
The rest of the group remained at a polite distance, over by the dimming fire, while the ivy churned around them. They didn’t speak much to one another; occasionally, one of them would glance in the direction of the pensive prince, who, for the most part, remained completely still, staring out at the empty meadow and the far line of ivy-smothered trees. Now a vine of ivy made an attempt for his knee; now he wiped it back with a flick of his mechanical fingers.
Time passed; the sun continued its downward migration. Still, the mechanical boy sat in his place on the rock, his chin resting on his hands.
“You’d think,” said Seamus, the first one to speak for a time, “that after all that time being, you know, dead, he’d be a little happier.”
“I imagine it’s complicated,” said Esben.
The bandit looked up in the sky, at the lowering angle of the sun, and said, “I expect we’ll be needed soon.”