Prudence and the Leeds Devil I

--I--
	The riders hauled Jeduthan and, to their growing distaste, that Quaker’s infernal contraption onto their horses- he’d know what to do with it. Galloping away through the worsening snowstorm they stowed the two in the chapel, fiercely trying to rouse the frostbitten senior. Stoking the placid embers in the fire to a roar they rubbed and shook him, his eyes blinking awake.
	“Life! Praise God,” one of the men shouted.
	“Get him up now, and away with his wetted clothing,” an older one shouted. This wasn’t his first rodeo in the snows of New England- time was crucial. Stripped to what dry clothing was left Jeduthan was finally lucid, if shivering wildly. Shivering was good, they reminded him, motion was good.
	“Mister Jeduthan,” the youngest asked, pointing to the stony corner of the room, “what should we do with that wooden hellspawn?” He spat on the ground even looking at it.
	“Nothing,” Jeduthan hacked, “nothing!” He panted, exhausted and ill, waving them away with his hands.
	“Mister Jeduthan, but-”
	“I said *nothing*!” He doubled over into an intense fit of coughing, ropes of bloody phlegm flitting onto the warped wooden floor. “That thing saved me, damn you!”
	“He’s lapsed away again,” whispered the other, “he’s imagining things. He must be near.” A bony hand lurched for that man’s collar, pulling him close. The snotty, running face stared into his eyes, mouth worming around for the words he wanted to shove down the other’s throat, to make him see. Grumbling, accepting the futility of it, he cast him away.
	“See to it that the machine is taken care of. Should I die, I want you,” he pointed at the youthful, blonde man, “to be her guardian. She’s done more for us than I’ve time to say.”
	The young man nodded, unsure, but unwilling to reject a direct order from Jeduthan; he’d been the man who oversaw his and his friends’ baptism, their education, their whole childhood. Nodding again he scooped up the robot and left for his home in the blistering whiteout, explaining frantically to his father the gravity of Jeduthan’s illness and his commands. Laying the jumbled mess of limbs and splintered wood down in his meager room, he knelt beside his bed to pray for the sick soul of Jeduthan, and for deliverance from the dead automaton staring at him from across the room.

	Days passed to the end of the week, Sunday. Jeduthan was in his death throes, cursing the world and the impotent village-folk who tended to him in his deepening mania. He cried of beasts in the coniferous wastelands that surrounded them, the hellish spawns of Satan creeping around the forests. They were lambs without a shepherd, he told them between pneumonic fits of coughing, pleading for them to protect the thinking machine with all their lives. He summoned for the young man he’d taken for this task, pulling him in with clammy, anemic hands.
	“Child,” he mumbled, hoarse, “I’ve chosen you alone for this. You’re young, there’s time. Fix the machine, please, I implore you with the last of my spirit.” The boy was disgusted by the old man, dragging the town down in his deathbed insanity, commanding things unimaginable of him or any other of the townsfolk. It was Jeduthan who railed against the degeneracy of the Quakers at mass, yet harbored one in the town. He wanted to draw his hand out of the moist, freezing vise that gripped him, but he couldn’t.
	“Father, you’re ill,” he spat. “You’re not speaking sense, you old bast-”
	“Be glad this room is empty, boy,” he groaned, rising up in his bed. The color returned to his cheeks, his hands felt hot again against the boy’s own, his cheeks were full and his face alive like in his youth. His chest heaved, clean and pure, face free of mucus and spittle. “Hear me now- protect that poor machine, do what you must to make her work. So help me God if you don’t do what I say, I will walk this Earth again and haunt your every waking moment.” And with that, he was gone.

	Years passed now, a generation grew up and the hamlet expanded. There was a new road, the throb of trade more lively in the coming years. The boy had grown to respectable manhood with a wife of his own and an ever-expanding family. For fear of death he’d taken the pains to defend the wooden construct from the odd vandal, gently clearing out the splinters of wood from her inside, going so far as to order for new plating from distant artisans. The robot was in decent shape, he proudly observed, pristinely repaired and clothing mended. He had her sat in a chair by the window in his home, waiting and lifeless- at times she’d scare passersby, but nothing stirred her to life. He tried winding her one night after several years, only to recoil at the inhuman grinding of gears, the tinny snap of lost wires. A fallen weight rattled in her wooden torso.
	And then, one day some forty years later, a young businessman, printer and, to the middle-aged man’s surprise, inventor happened along. He’d been on business in Boston and decided to explore the ‘local flavour’, peeping around the grim locale of the previous generation’s witch hunt. Staying the night in the isolated hamlet he took shelter with the aging man, spinning him grand tales of the great city of Philadelphia and his work there. As he started to mention his scientific pursuits, though, he at once captured the interest of the aged Puritan. Rising from his seat wordlessly he went for the robot, pulling the dense wood-brass cadaver to the table they shared.
	“So, friend,” he huffed. “Have you any knowledge of… such things?” He waved his hands in the air.
	“I do, I do! I’ve tried in vain to make something such as this, but- Are you the maker?”
	“No, he’s… since passed,” the man returned, sullen.
	“A shame, a shame… Say, sir, could I interest you in a deal, perhaps? I think,” he continued, inspecting the machine, “I really think I could have her working again. What do you say to ten shillings?” His eyes widened at the generous offering. It would be unchristian to take the money, to dispense of his responsibility after so much time spent languishing in his home- but that was just it, sitting unattended and untouched she wasn’t going anywhere. A youthful spark jumped in the young man’s eyes, narrow spectacles just barely containing the exuberance behind them as he played with her limbs, studied the cogwork beneath her panelling, the peeling rosy-red paint of her cheeks. This man could offer her, or it, or whatever it was to him more than a life spent leaning against the window.
	“Take her, no charge.”
	“Sir, surely-”
	“I’m sure. But please,” he sighed, “get her working. Not just for my sake.” The young man took his hand and shook it furiously, teetering too close on the border of an unceremonious hug.
	“I will, friend, I promise you that! I’ll have her sent home to you posthaste, I assure you.” The idea of her coming “home” had never occurred to him, only the idea of getting rid of her. Looking over the lifeless construct lying on his table he felt a twang of regret that he’d never tried to offer her what the eager gentleman was so enthused to.
	“There’s no need for that, but- but take care of her.” He couldn’t explain the coming grief of parting with her, whether it was a fondness for her place at the window or how she spooked those passing it, he wanted to rescind his offer. It was too late for that now, he knew, slapping the delicate brass box he’d kept on the shelf into the young man’s hands. “You’ll be needing this too.”
	“Oh, excellent, thank you,” he beamed, already tinkering with her open chest. Come the morning he carted the robot away, slumped over like a sleeping child in the passenger seat of his carriage. Watching the pair disappear over the horizon the man doubled over in relief, glad no glowing apparition rose from the ground or his fireplace to torment him. He wished her the best, hoping she’d find some better peace upon waking in Philadelphia.