Winter had come and Macclesfield appeared to have been blanketed in a layer of powdered sugar. Everything sparkled in the light of late morning. It was also bitterly cold, but snow was absolutely essential for the safety of Amelia’s current project.
Marta was in a heavy coat and driving the newest iteration of Amelia’s horseless carriage, which was a little, four-wheeled affair with a driver’s seat at the front, a steam engine at the back and the bare minimum of weight, because it was designed for hauling heavy loads. To that end, it had a hitching mechanism at the back to attach and pull loads. It used one of the biggest steam engines Amelia had ever made and was geared down between the engine and the drive shaft, giving it significant power.
The carriage was all custom parts, most of it in a new formulation of steel that was extremely resistant to rust, which Amelia had named ‘adamant steel’. The outer shell Amelia added to keep internal mechanisms out of the weather had been painted a red shade, because she was very proud of her work. Since it was intended purely for hauling heavy loads, Amelia had named it a ‘tractor’, which was derived from an old, dead language, literally meaning, ‘to pull’. The tractor was extremely loud, but incredibly useful.
However, that was nothing compared to what it was pulling: Amelia’s newest project, which she’d named Blackbird. It was a lightweight, all-wood affair that slightly resembled its namesake, though it had fixed wings mounted to the sides, instead of wings that flapped, and the tail was nothing like that of a bird, with fins more akin to those of a fish, though there were three of them. One fin went straight up, while two others went out to either side. Each fin had a small, movable flap along the trailing edge, which Amelia was confident would allow her to control the craft’s direction in flight. In contrast to the tractor, Blackbird had ski-like runners in place of wheels, because Amelia didn’t like the idea of landing on hard wheels. At the front of it was a steam engine with a lot of power, though Amelia had made it as small and light as possible and just beyond that, mounted on the engine’s drive shaft, was a device described in The book of Newts, a propellor. The propellor was a shaft of wood with angled edges, which was designed to force air to flow backwards, over and under Blackbird’s wings. In deference to the name, Amelia had painted the whole thing black.
Amelia and Iris crunched through the snow, moving at a brisk walking pace to keep up, on either side of Blackbird, to keep an eye out for potential collisions, because the flying machine was relatively fragile. Both sisters wore heavy coats and trousers, with heavy scarves around their necks, as well as thick, woolen hats, because they were expecting things to get even colder once they were in the air.
Townsfolk stared with wonder and did their best to get out of the way. Some few made gestures designed to ward off evil, but did nothing more. Persistent rumors of witchcraft surrounded the sisters, as it had their whole lives, but Mrs. Maccle and her husband had mostly squashed them, because they were always very keen to see what Amelia would build next. Several of her inventions had been huge successes in the city, including a steam-powered washing machine Amelia had come up with to save Iris from the drudge work of laundry.
Amelia reflected on recent history. They’d been in Macclesfield for six months and it was really starting to feel like home. The people there mostly liked them and Amelia had become famous in cities along the trade route that passed through the city, which had only brought more customers. She’d been so busy with work, she’d been forced to pick and choose which jobs she wanted, which had only driven demand and her pay through the roof.
Still, all the while, she’d been working through the mathematics of flight, while she scaled up her models, because small and large examples of the same thing never behaved identically.
When they left the city behind, Amelia and Iris climbed into the pair of in-line seats set inside the fuselage of Blackbird, which Amelia jokingly called the ‘witchpit’. Amelia was in front and Iris in the second seat, largely because Amelia was short enough for Iris to see over her head. Once they were aboard, Marta picked up the speed, until they reached a particular field, which was owned by Mayor Maccle, who’d eagerly agreed to let them do their tests on it.
With the tractor’s engine idling away, Marta slowed it to a stop and set the brake, before hopping down.
She went around the wing and approached the witchpit from the left side, shouting over the sound of the tractor’s engine, “You ready?”
Amelia shouted back, “Ready!”
“And eager!” Iris grinned like a maniac.
Iris loved fast vehicles, a fact Amelia didn’t care for, but the middle sister was also the best horseless carriage driver they had, and Amelia had reluctantly accepted her sister as co-pilot. In addition, Iris was a quick thinker and rather good at keeping her mind calm when things went wrong.
On the other hand, Marta seemed to have no interest in the actual flying, though she’d assisted with every other aspect of the project.
She shouted, “You know, I think this is crazy! If witches were meant to fly, I’m certain it would involve a broomstick!”
She went back around the wing and unhitched the tractor, then spent a moment with a wrench, removing the mechanism from Blackbird that had linked the two vehicles, because it wasn’t aerodynamic. She carried the arrangement of steel parts back to the tractor, which she drove away.
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Inside the witchpit, there were two controls, a stick designed to adjust the flaps on the tail and a throttle handle to control the power of the engine. The stick was mounted between the legs, near Amelia’s knees. There were identical controls in the back seat, with both sets linked to the same, steel rods that ran back to the tail and forward to the engine.
“Starting engine.” Amelia declared and pushed the throttle forward.
The propellor spun slowly at first, but the engine soon had it up to speed and Amelia cautiously pushed it forward. After a moment, Blackbird inched ahead.
Iris shouted with excitement, “We’re moving!”
Knowing they needed maximum power for takeoff, Amelia pushed the throttle all the way forward and the engine got much louder! Beneath the engine, occasional puffs of steam were released via an aerodynamic pipe attached to the pressure relief valve, which kept the engine from exploding. It wasn’t the most efficient way to run it, but the extra power was hypothetically required for takeoff.
They were soon sliding along at a fair clip and there was a moment of sheer exhilaration as they reached the speed required for the wings to lift them from the ground!
“We’re flying!” Iris screamed, “Woo-hoo!”
Amelia glanced sideways, confirming that fact!
“Yes!” She punched the air with a fist!
Putting both hands on the control stick, Amelia very gently pulled back and they rose higher into the air, soaring like a massive raven!
“Woo-hoo!” Iris whooped with even greater delight!
As they rose above the height of the frosted trees of the nearby forest, Amelia gently pulled the stick sideways, putting them into a broad turn, to circle the city, rather than flying away from it. The last thing Amelia wanted was to end up a long distance away from home, with only minimal emergency supplies, because they couldn’t spare the weight.
They continued to climb, because Amelia knew the velocity at which they were flying could be lethal and she was planning to deal with the major issue of landing, once they’d had their fill of flight.
When they were at an altitude Amelia considered safe, she reduced the throttle and reluctantly called out, “You want to give it a try?”
Iris giggled in a mildly crazed way and Amelia felt a little tremor in the stick as Iris took hold of her own, since they were linked.
As expected, Iris was more rough with Blackbird than Amelia cared for, performing a few swooping dives that had Amelia’s stomach trying to climb up her throat, followed by some sharp turns! After a while, Amelia was feeling a little sick, despite the fact she’d kept her hands on the stick the entire time, to reduce the effects of her sister’s crazy choice of maneuvers.
“Enough!” Amelia cried out, “I’m getting sick!”
“Okay!” Iris grumbled and let go, leaving control in the hands of Amelia.
She reduced engine power and slowly brought them back down, in a wide circle.
She scanned the terrain for the red color of the tractor until she spotted it, then mentally planned a path to get them down. After two more circles, she reduced power even more, lined up on the field, aiming to the side of Marta, and tipped the stick forward, taking them down.
The landing was the only part that Amelia was nervous about, because she had no idea what she was doing. The Book of Newts had described the process in broad terms, but most of the details had been left to the imagination, because it depended on the method of landing. Hypothetically, Amelia knew what to do, but theory and practice were two different things and she expected to crash, at least the first time.
She gently brought them down, flying just a bit above the ground with the engine at minimal power, then completely shut it off for the last few moments, while she slightly tipped the stick back, hoping to land on the back end of the skis, rather than jamming the tips into the ground.
There was a shudder as Blackbird cut through the snow to the packed ice beneath and they were on the ground!
Amelia punched the air again and shouted, “Yes!”
They were skiing along, properly landed, and all that was left was waiting to slow down!
Unfortunately, the entire landscape was white and from her elevated position, she couldn’t tell the difference between the flat land and the boulder at the edge of the field, because it blended right in.
There was a cracking sound as the still-spinning propellor hit the boulder and shattered, sending high-velocity fragments flying upward and to the sides! That was followed by the metallic thump of the steam engine hitting rock, then a spray of hot water and steam as it cracked open! The body of Blackbird was next, the wooden fuselage ripped from nose to tail by the jagged edge of the boulder, very nearly taking Amelia’s foot off, leaving her boot sliced open! Along the way, it caught the left ski, tearing it right off!
The sisters screamed in terror as the sundered aircraft briefly lurched back into the air, forced upward by the boulder! They flew a short distance, before landing on the remaining ski, only to lurch sideways as the weight of Blackbird dragged the left down, into the snow, at which point the entire vehicle spun on the ground, until the strain ripped the wing off! There was a whiplash-inducing twist the other direction when the other wing dug into the snow and soil, which slammed Iris and Amelia into the side of the witchpit! With another lurch, the remaining ski snapped and they dropped to the ground, snow, ice and dirt spraying all over the both of them, from the open bottom of the craft!
They finally came to a stop beside the main road and Amelia hung herself over the side, retching.
Iris, on the other hand, seemed hysterical, because she started laughing in a terribly manic fashion.
When Amelia was able to stop puking, she looked back at Iris, who was starting to cry as the shock wore off.
After a few minutes, Marta finally caught up in the tractor and walked over, asking, “Are you two okay?”
Iris finally stopped laughing and shook her head, “Not really, but I will be.”
“I feel sick and I’m aching all over.” Amelia admitted.
“So, it wasn’t any fun?” Marta’s face twisted into a wry grin.
“I didn’t say that.” Amelia grumbled, “I just need to get better at landing. Clearly, the snow was a bad idea, after all, because I couldn’t see that boulder. I need to find a way to give the next version wheels, but wood or metal will be too stiff and rough. I need to cushion them, somehow.”
Marta offered a hand to each of them and they were grateful for the aid with climbing out, because both pilots had rather awful bruises, though they were fortunate to have no broken bones.