The Blind Contessa's New Machine Read Free Page A

brushing over a shady lane. Then the mysterious road turned sharply and vanished in the woods.
    “Where does it go?” Carolina had asked a few weeks before, holding back the carriage’s thick curtains.
    “Nowhere, darling,” her mother had told her. “It may have gone to the river once. There’s nothing there now.”
    This answer only inflamed Carolina’s suspicions. Carolina’s mother had told her there was nothing in the old gardener’s shed, but on investigation, Carolina had discovered that it was crammed with treasure: jars full of colored glass, brown paper packets decorated with drawings of flowers and vegetables, enough burlap to make a wedding dress, and spiderwebs spun so large they could catch a child.
    Determined to see for herself where the road led, Carolina struck out across her father’s lawn and tramped through the forest that claimed that corner of his property, using a system she had developed for not walking in circles in the woods, a fate she knew often befell less clever travelers. Quite simply, she walked from tree to tree, always choosing one slightly to the east, which was where she judged that the road must run. But despite her new system and some admirable self-control in resisting the blandishments of a number of intriguing flowers that beckoned from beyond her chosen path, she emerged from the brambles still in sight of her own gate.
    Her disappointment was interrupted almost immediately by the sight of Turri and his machine.
    “What does it do?” she called, picking her way through the stubble of yearling trees that had bravely taken root in the parched grass between the road and the forest.
    Turri glanced up at her for a moment and then resumed glaring at the wreckage. “It’s a trap for angels,” he said.
    Before Carolina could decide whether this was a joke, a lie, or some new category, the pile of silk and sticks burst into flames.
    For one long breath, pale blue and gold fire swept over the delicate folds, caressing the cloth without consuming it. Then the sticks began to crack, and the twine charred and curled.
    Carolina leapt onto the pile, stamping madly. After just a few measures of her strange dance, the fire was vanquished. She stood in the ruins of the machine, the ghost of the fire rising as faint smoke around her bare knees, and looked at Turri.
    He looked back at her with the sudden keen interest of a scientist whose specimen has been unwise enough to reveal some extraordinary trait: a bird repeating the name he had mumbled in his sleep, a mouse struggling to rise on two feet, a fish that lights up as the sun drops into the sea.
    Troubled by his gaze, Carolina extracted herself from the wreckage. “I hope I didn’t break anything,” she said, retreating into politeness in this completely unmapped territory.
    Turri laughed.
    Carolina’s eyes narrowed. The inexplicable laughter of adults always filled her with rage.
    At the change in her expression, Turri composed himself immediately. “I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “I wouldn’t dare. You might strike me with lightning.”
    With this, he knelt and began to roll the remains of his experiment into a bundle, as thick as a man and nearly as tall. When he rose to his feet he pulled it with him, propping it upright in the road. The jumble of sticks and fabrics gave the overall effect of a beloved scarecrow, brightly adorned for burial.
    He seemed slightly surprised to discover that Carolina had not disappeared from the scene. “Do I know your name?” he asked.
    “Carolina,” she said.
    “Carolina,” he repeated. Then he tilted his head with all the dignity of one grown man acknowledging a debt to another. “Thank you.”
    Carolina tilted her head in return.
    As Turri turned away, she stepped back into the shade. Nothing broke the silence of the bright afternoon except the crunch of Turri’s boots. A strip of turquoise silk, escaped from the bundle, trailed in the road, raising a thin plume of golden