Amelia was fourteen years old and hard at work in a small shed her father had built to house her experiments and projects, since there wasn’t room for them in the house. It was just large enough for a small wagon and the walls were covered in tools Amelia had made, all hanging from nails, some of which came from the book, while others were of her own design.
There was a workbench to one side, on which the book lay on a lectern, open to a page displaying a newt with an exceptionally fat tail, which had obviously been designed for swimming, because it was so much like that of an eel. The text described it as darkly colored, with mottled skin somewhat resembling sand or dirt.
The opposite side of the shack was dominated by a small forge and smelter of Amelia’s own design, which looked nothing like that used by the village smith, because she needed far higher temperatures for her work. They were based on heating with magic, rather than burning coal, though Amelia didn’t have the raw magical power to handle that task, so her mother or one of her sisters did it, while she worked the metal. Currently, both the forge and smelter were idle and cool.
Ironically, the local smith had been begging to see Amelia’s custom equipment for ages, because the steel she sold him was far superior to anything he knew how to make, but she’d always referred to her methods as a trade secret, which no smith would ever violate, because crafting secrets passed from master to apprentice were their livelihood.
That sad excuse for a smith had often begged to become her apprentice, but Amelia had always rejected his requests by saying, “You’re far better at metalworking than I am. I should become your apprentice.”
By Daleshade law, which Amelia knew by heart, it was illegal for a smith to take a girl for their apprentice, which was the very reason she’d said it. Ironically, the same law book said nothing about a girl becoming a self-taught smith, which was the loophole she’d found to get Mayor Rumblecleaver to leave her alone when she first tried to sell steel.
That particular argument had ended when Amelia smiled and sweetly asked, “On which page does your law book say I can’t make and sell steel? If you’re going to enforce the law, you can at least tell me the page number, so I can look it up and fully understand your reasoning.”
Amelia would never forget watching the mayor flip back and forth through the book while she waited, because no one had ever demanded he justify his actions based on the law book, even though it was available for everyone to read. That was such an old law that it was carved into a faded wooden sign outside the village courthouse, reading as: The law must be free to read by all. It was the first law the village founder had made and he’d felt so strongly about it, he’d made a sign.
Eventually, the mayor gave up and walked away in disgust, saying, “You can sell your steel.”
It was the first occasion in living memory in which someone from Daleshade had won an argument with Mayor Rumblecleaver on the basis of law. After that, other villagers tried to read the law book, but nothing came of it, because most everyone was so poorly-educated, they could barely read in the first place.
Amelia wore a plain, button shirt and a pair of trousers. She’d recently given up on dresses as work clothes, after a horrible incident involving her skirt and a steam engine, which would have taken her leg off, if Father hadn’t been watching from a distance. Sadly, the wearing of trousers had led to another argument with the mayor, also settled via Amelia’s encyclopedic knowledge of the law, though she’d eventually backed down, after her mother had a word with her, because making trouble in the village could have consequences for the whole family. So, Amelia wore trousers for work and a dress in the village.
Beside The Book of Newts was half a steam engine with a belt wheel on one side, complete with a little water tank, which was currently empty. The main steam chamber was wide open. It was far smaller than average, because Amelia had removed the firebox. Currently, no belt was connected to the wheel.
Amelia leaned over eight heavy, steel plates, which were each eight centimeters wide and nearly square, aside from round notches that had been cut from the corners of six of them, while the last two really were square, with small holes in the corners, for mounting. In her hands were a hammer and chisel, which she used for hammering markings into the plates. Six of them bore runes from some ancient language that read as ‘metal’, ‘boil’ and ‘water’, which combined to form the idea of steam resulting from water touching the metal. Amelia worked to add them to the seventh, while she had no intention of doing the same with the eighth, which was one of the two mounting plates. To one side were a set of four steel rods with notches about the thickness of the plates.
When she finished the last plate, Amelia smiled and fixed two of the rods between the pair of plates with holes, then arranged the rest of the plates in the notches, before adding the final pair of rods, using screws to fix the rods to the pair of end plates. The final result was all eight plates mounted parallel to each other, at four centimeter intervals, for a total length of about 28 centimeters, which was roughly eleven inches long, held together with only four screws.
Amelia was still getting used to the ‘metric’ measuring system from The Book of Newts, which had led to a few amusing accidents, including the explosion of her first steam engine a year earlier, but since then, she’d stopped mixing the book’s units and the ones she was used to. Overall, she liked the elegant, decimalized length and weight system, because it made more sense than feet, inches and pounds, though she was still working with ounces, pints, quarts and gallons, because that was a harder adjustment she’d been putting off, until she learned to work glass.
She reached for a ceramic jug and poured a few drops on the device, smiling when the water vaporized, as if the metal was hot. She gingerly touched it, finding it cool to the touch. She poured more water from the jug, producing a big cloud of steam!
Amelia giggled, because it worked exactly the way she’d planned.
“Well, what have you built this time?”
Amelia turned to look at her sister, who’d eclipsed the light. Marta was tall and very womanly, despite a build like a lumberjack, a mature woman of twenty-six years. She wore a black dress, which had been her choice of style since her husband died and she’d come back to the family home, around the time Amelia had been six years old. Her blue eyes bore a sadness that no woman should bear and her golden blond hair hung just past her shoulders, though she found joy in spending time with Amelia.
“I’m making a steam engine that doesn’t need fire, instead using a runic enchantment to boil water.” Amelia explained.
Marta stepped over to the book and looked at it with doubt, because it only showed its true nature to Amelia, “Did you get that from your book?”
The girl shook her head, “No, one of Granny Starla’s journals. Mama tried to make it work a long time ago, but I figured out why she failed. The runes only seem to work on stone or metal and you have to use at least two, to form a sentence. Mama only used one.”
“I remember that.” Marta nodded, “She spent weeks trying to make a wooden spoon that would make water boil. Why doesn’t wood work?”
“Stone and metal slowly absorb a little magic over time, but living things use it up to stay alive, since life is a form of magic. Things that were once alive use the magic in an attempt to live again. That’s why wood doesn’t work, even if it’s dead.”
Marta chuckled, “So, you’re telling me that dead wood is always very slightly zombie?”
“Uh, maybe?” Amelia shrugged as she picked up her new creation, “It’s more dead than zombie, though.”
She placed the enchanted metal device inside the little engine’s steam chamber and Marta gave her a hand as she worked to reseal the contraption. When they were done, Amelia poured water from her jug into the reservoir of the engine, watching as steam pressure built inside and the belt wheel turned!
Marta clapped, “Amazing! Steam power without a fire!”
“Since this worked out so well, now I just need a carriage…” Amelia grinned.
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Marta’s brow furrowed, “Why? It’s not like we have a horse.”
“Who said anything about a horse?” Amelia grinned, knowingly, “I just need a carriage.”
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Months had passed and the carriage Marta purchased on Amelia’s behalf had been modified so much, it barely resembled its original form. The whole front end had been rebuilt and Amelia had been so busy tinkering with it, she’d actually sent Marta off with drawn plans for parts, to have the village smith forge them.
The shafts for the horse were gone and the fifth wheel, which allowed the front wheels to turn as the horse did, had been replaced by a rather large gear, which had been linked via a complex gearing system to a small wheel mounted at hand height for the driver, allowing them to turn the entire cart as it rolled along.
Likewise, the rear end was totally different, mechanically speaking. The back wheels were now mounted on a spinning shaft, instead of spinning freely, while the shaft was linked via a gear box to a belt wheel, which stood ready to receive the belt that would drive it from the steam engine’s output shaft. The gear box was also connected, via a set of long rods, to the driver’s area, where a small pedal had been installed for the clutch, and a handle for shifting between a few options for gears had been installed on the front plate that kept mud from splashing on the driver. There was also a handle for adjusting the throttle on the engine, which controlled how deeply the steam-generating rune box was plunged into the water of the steam chamber.
After an awful experiment involving a hill, Amelia had overhauled the braking system to apply equal pressure to both wheels, as well as a backup brake for stopping the drive shaft from spinning.
Really, the only thing that hadn’t been changed was the seating area, which was open to the front and sides, with room for four, conveniently enough space for the whole family, if one of them was driving, which was something Amelia had specifically asked for. It bore a little awning to keep the weather off the passengers and the cushions of the seats were decent, including the driver’s seat. The frame of everything was painted black, aside from the custom parts. The cushions were red.
The back end of the carriage had been raised on wooden blocks to make room for installing the steam engine and the three sisters were working together to mount it, since it was so heavy and their father was too busy cutting wood to sell to the villagers. Marta and Iris both wore some trousers they’d borrowed from Father, because the work wasn’t the cleanest sort.
Iris had blue eyes and ash-blond hair, which was up on her head in french braids. She was nineteen years old and considered a spinster, because she’d only ever had eyes for the mayor’s son, Conrad, and he’d been dead for three years. The two had been engaged to marry, but he’d been attacked by wolves under strange circumstances, just days after the coming event had been announced to the whole village. After Conrad’s death, no other boy had taken an interest, despite the fact Iris was exceptionally beautiful.
Amelia had rather liked Conrad, because he was nice, polite and always amusingly nervous around Iris. Amelia had found the way he stuttered around Iris to be rather funny, because he didn’t do that with anyone else. One smile from Iris could leave the boy in stunned silence for days after. It had been quite surprising when he asked Father’s permission to seek the hand of Iris, though it had taken him a full six months after that to pluck up the courage to ask her.
After Father had one drink too many, a few nights after Conrad died, Amelia overheard him speaking in the night, “…weren’t no accident! I was with the woodcutters that found him and I saw the rope burns on what was left of his wrists and the marks on the bark of that bloody tree! I’d stake my life on the idea he was tied to it when the wolves got him.”
“Let it go.” Mama had spoken a little too loudly, “You know there’s nothing more…”
After that, they’d been too quiet to overhear. Conrad had been murdered, but Amelia had no clue who would do such an unimaginably awful thing, let alone why.
Since the death of Conrad, Iris had thrown herself into studying magic and potions, as their mother’s apprentice. Iris wasn’t as good at energetic magic as Marta, but she excelled at long-range magic and scrying via any reflective surface, such as the water in a bowl. Iris always had a knowing look in her eyes, as if she knew everyone’s secrets, though the joy of that had gone from her life in the past three years.
Amelia’s sisters held the engine in place, while Amelia went around with a wrench, bolting it to the mounting bracket she’d installed for it. When the engine was secure, Amelia installed and tightened the drive belt linking the engine to the gear box.
“Who gets to drive first?” Iris asked with a hopeful expression on her face.
It was the first time since the death of Conrad that Iris had something other than grief on her face.
Marta also seemed to notice, because she smiled and asked, “Amelia, why don’t we let Iris drive first? After all, she has such a steady hand.” Marta winked.
“I’ll do a quick test run, first,” Amelia smiled, “then Iris can take us for a drive around our land.”
Within ten minutes, they’d gotten it off the blocks and Amelia drove their new horseless carriage around the house a few times, to make sure everything worked the way she’d planned, followed by some small adjustments.
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Half an hour after that initial test, they emerged from the family house in dresses, since it was just possible they could be spotted driving around and the horseless carriage was likely to cause enough stir on its own, without an argument over trousers. Iris wore something in a dark green shade, with a white apron for the sake of some pockets, and Marta was back in black. Amelia was in one of her old, undyed hand-me-downs. Marta held a basket that contained a picnic-style lunch their mother had packed them, so they could make a day of it. Iris climbed into the driver’s seat, while Marta and Amelia got comfortable in the back.
Amelia looked ahead as Iris turned to face them and asked, with a grin, “Are we all secure, ladies?”
“Yes, ma'am.” Marta grinned back.
Amelia eagerly nodded, “Let’s go!”
Iris reached into the pocket of her apron and produced a pair of goggles. Tying them at the back of her head fully pinned down her hair and resulted in a sleek, speedy look that made Amelia slightly nervous. With a mildly-crazed look that Amelia would soon come to dislike, she turned ahead and shoved the throttle handle all the way forward!
There was a loud bubbling sound from the steam engine, which was mounted just under Amelia’s seat, and the carriage lurched ahead! As they careened away from the house and onto one of the paths leading to the dirt road circling their family’s land, Amelia and Marta screamed!
Iris, on the other hand, howled and whooped with delight, “Woo-hoo!”
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Rolf Mossflaw, the only smith in Daleshade, had been resisting the urge to spy on Amelia, but in recent months, after all the work he’d done for her, he could stand the curiosity no more. He’d vowed to himself that he would not violate the sanctity of her craft secrets, but she was obviously working on something related to her new carriage and getting a peek at that could hardly be considered a violation? After all, he’d built half the new parts for it, so it was only fair that he at least get to see the result.
Rolf was a large man, with rock-hard muscles built up from childhood, when he’d been his father’s apprentice. He’d been working a forge since he’d been big enough to hold a hammer, more than twenty years. His hair was short and neatly-trimmed to avoid burning it off through an errant spark. Likewise, he was also clean-shaven.
He was sneaking through the woods, accompanied by his son, who shared his given name. Rolf Junior was a short boy, though he had muscles nearly as large as his father’s and a face full of pimples, because the moment he’d hit puberty, it turned into a festering mess, complete with a few boils. Rolf hoped his son would grow out of that, because it might make finding a wife difficult.
Rolf’s professional pride had been wounded by Amelia’s superior steel, but she’d made him feel better by paying him to make parts for her carriage. In a strange way, it was gratifying to know the girl didn’t have the strength and stamina to do all her own metalwork, despite the fact she’d supplied Rolf with the steel ingots for the parts.
In short, he no longer had any ill-will toward the girl, but curiosity had gotten the better of Rolf, which was why he was headed for the Blackwell family’s little cottage, which was at the center of many disused and overgrown farm fields, because their ancestors had been farmers, despite the fact they weren’t.
“Woo-hoo!” The cry of a young woman caught the attention of Rolf and his son, forcing them to dive for cover, just as Amelia’s new carriage zipped past, without a horse!
Junior asked, “Dad, is…is that…witchcraft?”
Rumors of magic and witchcraft had swirled around the Blackwell family for decades and clearly, Junior had also heard them.
Rolf stared at the strange, heavily-modified contraption with horror and a terrible certainty settled on him. He didn’t like it at all, because he’d wanted to take up Amelia on her offer to be his apprentice, despite the law saying he couldn’t teach her. He tried to let go of his suspicions by reasoning Amelia might have built one of her steam engines into the thing, but that wasn’t enough for Rolf to let it go.
He understood how those engines worked, because Amelia had spent an afternoon excitedly talking with him about it when she learned how to build her first, after they haggled on a price for steel. The girl’s first engine had almost gotten her in trouble with the mayor, but steam engines were hardly unique to her, because people from other villages used them and ultimately, the mayor never raised much fuss about it.
However, between the engine itself and the firebox to run it, there would be too much weight for the carriage to be so fast. On the other hand, Amelia was extremely clever, so maybe it was possible, but the worst piece of evidence occurred to Rolf, forcing him to accept it, whether he liked it or not: there was no smoke from the engine’s fire, though there was a tiny bit of waste steam. There was no way to make a steam engine without a firebox and smoke.
He wished he hadn’t seen it, but Amelia had finally demonstrated the fact she was using witchcraft. Witchcraft was illegal and punishable by death, as was failing to report a witch to the mayor.
“I’m afraid it is, son.” Rolf hung his head for a moment, worried about the consequences of what he knew he had to do, “We should get back to the village.”
With a heavy heart, Rolf turned to head home, walking slowly. He had no desire to see any harm done to the Blackwell family, but the law was the law, whether he agreed with it or not, and his father had raised him to respect the rule of law, lest he get the beating of his life.