Tales from a Mechanical Bird

In case you’re interested in reading from the beginning, I’ve setup a page that links to all of the individual stories.

Chapter 0: Alicia and the Mechanical Bird

Here’s the original story in which my current short stories are all based off. This story follows the life of a young woman named Alicia, who believes that her past life was one as a bird. She’s born again without the ability to fly and goes on a journey through her life to recover it. The world she inhabits is 19th century-like. The stories that come after it are her journeys beyond her homeland. If you think they feel like Kino’s Journey after you read them or remind you Grimm Fairy Tales, then you’re not far off the mark. Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Alicia and the Briar Rose

Chapter 2: Alicia and the Broken Doll

Chapter 3: Alicia and the Black Bird Witch

Chapter 4: Alicia and the Watchmaker’s Forest

Alicia and the Watchmaker’s Forest

From the sky, Alicia found the dirt road snaking through the countryside leading to the mouth of the Watchmaker’s Forest. “Buckle up! We’re landing!” She called back to her passenger Lily, who was tightening her embrace around a small pail with one hand and reaching for a rope to strap across her chest with the other.

Once on the ground, Alicia stretched her arms out, took in the fresh air, and walked out to a warm sunlit rock and started cleaning her rifle. Lily lugged her pail across the field to a nearby stream to clean it out. The broken mechanical boy was lying in the back of the plane with a tarp over his body.

“All this for a doll?” Lily asked, setting her damp bucket on the ground. She sprawled out across the grass besides the airplane.

A loud crack came from the forest. Birds scattered from the rustling treetops. Alicia aimed her rifle towards the trees. Lily jumped to her feet but took hold of the plane’s wing to steady herself. A roar followed the gunshot along with a sudden, loud thunk.

The girls looked at each other. Lily shook her head in protest but Alicia slung her rifle over her shoulder and ran for the gaping, black maw of the forest. She hopped over the rocks, brushed aside the gnarled branches, and sidestepped the overgrown roots as she followed the constant thumping noise of the beast marching away from its kill.

Lily caught up to Alicia and planted her hand on the closest tree trunk she could find. Panting she said, “Wait, wait for me.” Alicia hushed Lily and waved for her to stay low. Her eyes followed the strange animal. Each leg of the beast moved one after the other as it marched over the the forest floor. It looked like a ten men walking side by side, goose-stepping. Alicia pushed Lily out of her bewildering stare and dragged her by the hand through the woods in the opposite direction from the monster. They found the bloody body of a man wearing hunting gear up against a tree with a circular indention in his chest. A journal lay next to him. Alicia picked it up and flipped through the pages skimming the entries.

Alicia stood in a lone patch of sunlight reading the journal. The chirping songs of birds and gentle rustling of tree branches replaced the thumping, regular footfalls of the animal. “He’s been looking for the Watchmaker,” Alicia said. “Seems like stories of the forest have spread far and wide. This hunter was going to kill one of the creatures that roam this forest and return him for a handsome reward.” She opened the man’s backpack to reveal tranquilizer darts and a bottle of chloroform.

“Is that why you’ve come?” Lily asked studying the dead man with wide, startled eyes. She looked ashen and ready to throw up again.

“No,” Alicia said. “The Watchmaker can repair the mechanical boy. I want to learn from his engineering techniques.”

A crackling static filled the air and a roar blasted out from behind both of them. Startled, Alicia raised her rifle in the direction of the noise. Lily snapped her fingers and flickering flames sprung from her fingertips. The birds stopped whistling and the breeze died away leaving a crackling noise all around them. Trees to their right shook; Alicia studied them from behind her rifle’s sight. Twigs snapped to their left and a small grove of trees swished in the air raining green and yellow leaves down upon them. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Alicia pointed between where both noises had come from. Footfalls fell one after the other. The trees Alicia pointed too parted and flattened as a rectangular, brown-furred beast broke through them. The creature was all legs – it looked like a twenty legged spider.

Lily arched her arm back to hurl a fireball but Alicia grabbed her wrist. She took a deep breath and stared her enemy down. Where was the face? The eyes? Arms? A mouth? Alicia counted only the twenty legs and they moved one after the other down a row. Once the last leg moved forward the first leg stepped again and the wave-like pattern of moving legs repeated. It roared and crackled at them as it approached.

“Alicia!” Lily tried to break her hand free of her grasp.

“It’s too regular moving to be an animal.” Alicia said. “Allow me.” She stepped in front of Lily and studied the monster barreling down on her and steadied her sight against the stalker’s central leg right where she thought it would meet the body. At the moment when the leg in front of her barrel was about to step forward, Alicia fired.

Crack! The bullet splintered the leg. It twisted and smashed into the next moving leg tripping the creature. Each leg afterward rubbed up and snapped against each broken appendage and the animal fell over. The legs continued to move and jut out of the creature’s backside in every direction tearing and mangling its fur coat.

“W, what kind of possessed creature is this?” Lily asked.

Alicia ran across the field and jumped up on top of the body and avoided the moving legs. Wooden limbs jutting out of the back gyrated back and forth. Alicia grabbed some of the loose flesh and tore it away. “Look! It’s just a fur rug!” Underneath the rug was a cone and the crackling noise came from inside of it. “A vibrating cone to make noise, interesting.” With her knife she unhooked it found wires running from it into the body of the animal. With a sharp pull, she yanked one of the wires out of the cone silencing it. Deeper within she could see gears spinning and pistons gyrating. “Ha!” Alicia wadded up the rug and stuffed it into the gears and the legs stopped moving. “Just like the doll!”

Alicia smiled at Lily. She stared back and dropped to her knees.

“The Watchmaker must have built this to keep intruders out of the wood,” Alicia said jumping down from its back. “There must be more than one. This is a large forest.”

“In that case, we’ll never find this Watchmaker,” Lily said.

“Actually.” Alicia smiled at the fallen monster. “I have an idea.”

Alicia and the Black Bird Witch

Erol and I were working in the pasture when a giant beast cast a shadow over our heads. I had never seen anything like it before. It looked like some kind of bird except the wings didn’t flap. The unnatural thing twisted and jerked in the air and touched down onto the ground a far distance down the hilltop where we were standing.

“It’s the Black Bird Witch! She’s returned!” My ignorant younger brother Erol said. “We need to tell mom and dad!”

“It is not,” I said to him. It was just a legend. A hundred years ago, a giant black bird flew into town. With a flash of lightning and clap of thunder, it revealed itself to be a witch. She asked for refuge and in return she would perform magical acts for the town. They took her in, and she stayed true to her word with one exception: as a monstrous bird, she needed to feed. In the dead of night, she stole children from their bedrooms and gobbled them up. The village watch caught the witch and burnt her at the stake. She swore revenge upon the villagers.

I dashed through the trees into the open field where the thing sat; My brother screamed for me to stop. Alicia, the self-proclaimed pilot of the “airplane” (that is her word for the machine), descended down a small step ladder from its head. We talked and I found her articulate, well-learned, and well-traveled. I brought her back to my house and asked my parents to give her a room. We conversed long into the evening about the things she had seen on her travels. I told her, despite being fifteen years of age, I had never been any further than confines of the farm except for one trip to town when I was very young.

“Why did you come here?” I asked her.

“I need to rest for my long journey ahead,” Alicia said. My mother interrupted us and sent me off to bed before I could ask where she was going.

That night Erol woke me from my sleep and bade me to come with him to the plane. By the fire light of our little lantern we trekked through the fields back to the mechanical bird. He was always spying on people and their private property. He showed me the body of a young boy lying in the back of the airplane.

“She’s the Black Bird Witch!” Erol said. “I’m going to get the constable and arrest her.” His eyes were burning even fiercer than the lamp light. Erol left me in the dark by the airplane, but I ran for the house. I crept up the stairs and tip-toed to our guest room. The old wooden floor creaked and betrayed my every silent step. Once I was at Alicia’s door I knocked. No answer. I opened the door and stepped into her room. The rim of a cold tube of steel touched my head. The hammer of a gun clicked into place. “I mean you no harm,” I said.

“I saw both you and your brother go down to my plane,” Alicia said. “I take it you saw what I was carrying.”

“Did you kill that boy?”

“No. I’m going to fix him.” She put her weapon away and picked up a duffel back from the bed. “Thank you for letting me stay the night.” She passed me by and hurried down the stairs. I went after her but once we stepped out the front door, the constable and his deputies had us surrounded. He approached us first. “Black Bird Witch,” he said. “If you try any of your tricks my men will kill you.” Half his square face was in shadow the other half was lit red and yellow by the flame of his torch. His faceless deputies stood behind him shielded by the darkness, but I saw their guns gleaming in the moonlight.

Alicia raised her hands.

“Arrest her, and take the girl too.”

“What!” Erol said. “No! Lily’s no witch!”

“She certainly is. She’s one of the demon bird’s spawn.”

The next day, the constable and mayor proclaimed that the curse of the town would be lifted because they had caught the Black Bird Witch and me. We would both be purified by the priest and burnt at the stake. Alicia and I sat together in the jail cell.

“What did he mean that you were the ‘demon bird’s spawn?’” Alicia asked me.

I raised my hand. “Watch.” A flame like one at the end of a candle flickered to life over my index finger. The flame bounced from fingertip to fingertip and then my entire palm lit on fire.

“Astonishing! I didn’t think magic still existed in the world,” Alicia said.

I closed my fist to put the flame out. “A maiden born of ever generation will inherit the dark arts of the Black Bird Witch and hunger for the flesh of the innocent.” I opened my hand. It was red and raw looking and smoke smoldered from my palm, but otherwise I was fine.

“Thank the King, I’m far from innocent these days.”

Once night blanketed the sky, I could see the stars shine over a large pile of wood and tinder. To the side, a man dressed in clerical robes stood with his holy book and a torch. Children were dressed in witch hats and black cloaks and ran around with faux black wings. They pelted us with rotten vegetables and curses as we were led to our pyre. The people were ready to celebrate our demise. Alicia and I were lashed to a pole on top of a pile of layered logs. The town priest gave us our purifying prayers and once he finished, he dropped his torch in a bundle of tinder under the logs. The villagers cheered and chanted and the fire licked at our feet.

I chanted too. Incantations from old passed down from my true mother.

Clouds formed overhead but not a soul standing in this barbaric mob noticed. Flashes of lightning and claps of thunder broke their chanting. I envisioned every drop striking down each one of them. I grew the thunder to a deafening roar and the lightning struck nearby houses. The rain washed the fire away from our feet, flooded the streets, and drenched the townspeople. Alicia broke her bonds with a razor she had tucked under her sleeve and she cut me loose too. “Let’s leave this place!”

Houses and stores burned because my lightning bolts. People scurried and ran like rats and no one gave us a hint of trouble as we raced through the streets. The constable and his deputies busied themselves with fire fighting and didn’t notice our escape. We returned to Alicia’s plane. She opened the back hatch where I saw the machine boy. “Quick get in!”

“Lily!” It was Erol. “Stop where you are! Both of you!”

“Erol. Please.” He had an arrow in his bow and aimed it for me.

“I know mom and dad lied to me now! The constable told me everything about you! You’re not my sister. You’re just a monster!” Tears streamed down his face. “And I have to kill you to save everyone!”

“Killing her will do nothing!” Alicia exclaimed.

“It will! You’ll see!” Erol retorted.

“Erol! Do what you must!” I closed my eyes but a loud bang from behind startled them open again. “Erol!” He was on the ground. His bow splintered into pieces.

Alicia holstered her smoking gun. “He’ll be alright.” Sure enough, I could hear Erol whimpering and shaking. I wanted to hold him. At least a final hug, but I turned my back on him.

“Goodbye brother.” I wiped a tear and got into the plane.

“If you don’t mind, there’s one place I need to stop before you can disembark,” Alicia said. “And I could definitely use your help there.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“The Forest of the Watchmaker.”