Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

with my knuckles,
waiting for God knows what to appear.
    A good quarter of
an hour later, a woman finally came through the doorway, tried once, twice, and
finally succeeded in closing the peel-paint door, locking it with an old brass
key. She was wearing the faintest shade of green I'd ever imagined and looked
me over with great exaggeration while her right hand tugged on the one-piece
leotard she wore. The choice in wardrobe made me instantly associate her with a
golden-haired trapeze artist I had seen as a child, and I found it suddenly
very difficult not to regard her as an acrobat.
    “You the one the
old man sent me for?” she spoke.
    “I think so,” I
answered, a little cautiously.
    “You're all wet.”
    “It's raining.”
    “Oh.” She rubbed
her painted thumbnails over each other and caught a look at a neatly arranged
triangle of bubble-bottomed glass teacups. “Oh! The hell did you do with
those?”
    “Not a lot.” In
truth, I had found the three cups lying overturned on the floor upon entering
the room and, in waiting, had properly arranged them to kill time and make a
good impression. My act seemed to have had the opposite effect.
    “Well, just
great,” she spat. “There's nothing left to be arranged, is there?”
    “I...suppose not.”
    “Wonderful.” She
grabbed at the veil she had been wearing on her head and cast it to the floor.
“Can't really play servant when you've left me no task to serve, can I?”
    I didn't know what
to say, so I apologized.
    “I'm...sorry.”
    She looked with a
fiery-green annoyance hard into my eyes, no easy task as my sloppy wet bangs
were trying their hardest to curtain them. She then suddenly softened into a
smile and placed her painted fingers on her hips.
    “That's all right,
sugar. No harm.”
    “Glad.”
    She nodded,
politely smiling like a show horse, and took four pronounced steps backward.
Slowly, like a lady of breeding, she lowered herself onto the old couch, her
weight pushing a few rusty springs up through the material, and struck an
exaggerated pose.
    “I'm ready,” she
said calmly. “Begin when you please.”
    “I'm...sorry?”
    “I already said
there's no harm, so you can begin.”
    I caught my breath
and attempted to solve this riddle.
    “No...” I said, a
little stupidly. “I mean...I'm sorry?”
    “What?”
    “I mean, I don't
understand.”
    With a sigh and a
grunt, she arched her back up and threw another fiery-green stare my way.
    “You artist types
are the absolute worst, you know that? You have to spell out everything!”
    “I...think there's
been a mistake. The old gentleman—“
    “Frenchie's a
coot, but he pegged you right. Stop with the babbling, artist, and start
sketching.”
    “Sketching?”
    “That is what you
types need, right? I'm doing the modeling thing, so get going.”
    “I can't draw.”
    “What?”
    “Or paint.”
    “This a joke?
Frenchie called you an artist.”
    “I am. Of the
written and....uh....spoken word.”
    “Oh, I get it.”
She cracked her knuckles and stood up. She then began to tap her pointed feet
on the floorboards, stretching her bare and bruised legs. “Bookish type. Okay.
What's your name, love?”
    “Will Pocket.”
    “Nice to meet ya,
Will. I think I know what you need.”
    She dropped to all
fours and began pulling a rather large steamer trunk in the opposite corner
from the leafy greens.
    “And what's your
name?” I asked.
    “Not important.”
    “Of course it is.”
    “Not to you. Call
me whatever you want. Your treat.”
    “I can't just make
you up an identity!”
    “Some writer you
are. Hey, give me a hand with this trunk, will ya, Will? Thanks. Look, if it'll
help, call me Abby.”
    “Abby...”
    “Sure, why not?
Good a name as any,” she shrugged. I observed in hesitation as the lady
rummaged through the trunk, throwing tiaras, feather boas, and ballet slippers
around the room before removing a pair of cheap, costume faerie wings, green as
her eyes, and donning