A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) Read Free

occasionally have to share these London streets with steam-powered lorries and trams. Double-decker passenger wagons, a wonder in themselves, are now pulled by steamer land locomotives.
    Gosh, the menfolk are all duded up fancy, what with their top hats, long shiny black coats, and sparkly vests. Spring-driven self-tipping hats appear to be very popular this year.
    My upbringing is to be hospitable. I reckon I’ll try being friendly with one of my English cousins.
    “Howdy there, ‘my good man’,” I say (I admit, I’m proud of being able to work in a bit of the local lingo), “are you all doing all right, tonight?”
    I receive a dubious appraisal in return. Oh well, I’ll try a different English phrase on these gentlemen.
    “Cheerio, y’all. This fog’s somethin’ else, ain’t it? I can't hardly see as far as a toad jump.”
    Hunh. They must not have heard me, because they are trying awfully hard to ignore me.
    There are lots of fancy ladies here in London.
    Dang, but my head’s a spinnin’ at all these pretty women. These London girlies are all gussied up finer than a peacock at the Bird’s World Fair. Their hats are packed with enough bird plumage to give flight to the Buckingham Palace.
    I ain't never seen nothing like these gals before! Some of these modern ladies have started an alluring, and risqué trend, by wearing their corsets on the outside of their dresses! Something about the way they wear their bustles tends to exaggerate, rather than to hide, their more delicate assets.
    I like this place!

Chapter 4 - A New Ally.
    Persephone
    What was before a lively courtyard, bustling with creatures great and small, is now lifeless and desolate.
    Drained from the events of the night before, I leave this melancholy scene. With no horse in the stable, I set out to walk to the Elderberry Pond train station. The events that led to this sad moment play in my mind.
    It began a few months ago, just after Father’s tragic death. I cling to the hope that the foul forces he had used to complete his experiments have departed as well. Alas, no...
    As Uncle Victor and I are cleansing the laboratory of the disgusting sigils father had scrawled over floor, wall, and ceiling, the beloved family retainer is attacked in a vicious assault I am powerless to stop. I know it is something not of this world, something unclean and unnatural. It draws the very life force out of Uncle Vic and drops his used husk. A hideous thing is formed, something I do not want to remember. I fly from the abomination in terror. I run into Michael the stable boy. He has heard me scream and come to my aid. The monster comes! Michael cannot see it! I can, but he cannot! Run, child, run! Alas no, I think his teenage infatuation with me has led to his wanting to protect me. He is a tragic, would-be gallant, slain in a wasteful manner.
    Father had always been a man of the strictest scientific disciplines. After the passing of the 'Revelatory Comet' , it was Father – with his already brilliant mind amplified by the Comet’s effect - who discovered the inner workings of atoms. This lead to his discovery of the nature of the Sun’s power: nuclear fusion. I remember the night when he showed me the equations, which he said had ‘come to him’ as if in a dream. Even then, his excitement seemed a bit alien, yet I was enthralled by the concepts he presented.
    He knew that if he could make use of his new understanding to replicate this series of reactions, Mankind could harness the power of the stars themselves to provide incalculable energy. Energy enough to power the world.
    Yet for all of his knowledge, for all of his precise and brilliant equations, he could not recreate the necessary conditions through scientific means. Where before the Comet’s passing he would have accepted this dispassionately, the changed man Father was could not contain his almost-frightening zeal. It was then that he succumbed to the temptations of dark magic to bring about what