The Secret World of Ophelia Fontaine

Part Five - Meeting Lady Fae

Just around a quarter to midnight, Darien pulled into a parking spot two blocks from the Manhattan address that he had retrieved from Miss Fontaine's phone. He killed the headlights and turned the ignition key to silence his engine. The street was empty save for a few stragglers. Stepping out of his car, he was passed by a couple dressed in bizarre costumes that were somewhat reminiscent of an era where progression and bustles reigned supreme.

In the dark, it was hard to make out the details of their attire, but it was obvious from the gentleman's tilted top hat and the ladies voluminous skirts that the pair was not dressed for the twenty-first century. He followed the chatting couple across the street at a cautious distance. They disappeared through the entrance of a shop front, Around the World in 80 Pages in bold white letters gracing the signage above the door. Midnight seemed, to Darien, to be too late an hour for a bookstore to be plying its trade.

He put his back to the old fashioned store front and peeped through the display window, looking past the various novels that littered its glass shelving. Inside, only a single wall sconce offered any kind of illumination, but it was enough for him to catch the sight of a book case shifting just inside the reach of its glow. When it appeared all clear, Darien carefully made his way inside the small shop. There was not one about to greet incoming guests or prevent unwanted visitors. Chelsea was not Washington heights, but how did the proprietor not understand that, if tempted, anyone could become a potential looter?

After spending several minutes examining the floor to ceiling bookshelf, Darien concluded that his mind had been playing tricks on him. The mahogany shelving unit was securely anchored to the wall and laden with books of various shapes and sizes. There were no scrapes or scratches on the floor to indicate that it had been forcibly moved and not books looked out of place. He must have missed something, but he could not for the life of him figure it out.

 The sound of muffled giggling from outside caused the hairs at the nape of his neck to rise. The counter was only an arms length away, not to mention the only portruding surface that offered any amount of cover, so he ducked behind it and hid from sight. It was a curious workspace; the counter being entirely crafted from classically bound books. The laughter became more pronounced as someone, or several somone's, entered the diminutive shop. He peeked around the corner to see two ladies and a gentlemen, dressed similarly to the previous couple he had seen, and watched as one of the ladies pulled a book partially out of its place on the shelf. There was a click, and then a rumble.

The mahogany case shifted forward and revealed a secret entrance. From beyond the portal, Darien could here the faint whimsical sounds of orchestral music such as he had never heard before. The two ladies childishly cheered as they both clutched onto each arm of the accompanying gentleman.

"Get a move on, now will you, Doctor?" one of the girls chided tartly as they both pushed him forward through the gaping gateway. 

A few seconds after they passed, there was another rumble as the bookcase slid back into place. Darien promptly removed himself from his hiding place and began to investigate the books upon the second to last shelf.  Valentine, Vandermeer, Verne, Wells, Westerfeld; all books from a genre known as steampunk. A flash of the signage outside the shop brought to mind the classic novel by Jules Verne; Around the world in eight days. He found the book on the shelf and pulled tried to pry the leather bound tomb from its place, but it would only yield part of the way.

Then there was a click, and then a rumble. Again, the haunting melody of mechanical consonance filled the small room from somewhere beyond the dark corridor that led to...somewhere. Bucking up his courage, Darien stepped into the ingress and cautiously made his way to other end, only slightly startled when the hatch snapped shut behind him. As he traveled closer to the music, he tried to classify it with little success. It was a unique blend of new and old with a certain hint of clockwork inflection. He found the enchanting harmonies to be alluring, inspiring.

At the end he found another door. He knocked, but there was not answer, only the strains of an endless tune seeping from its ancient wooden seams. He knocked once more with little hope of a reply and was just about to turned the knob when the it was abruptly opened wide by a gentleman dressed in oversized goggles covering half his face and top hat that would put the mad hatter to shame. Arms open wide, the ridiculous man bowed with great flourish before beckoning him to enter the crowded room.

At first, he would have thought it a circus. Men and women were dressed in costumes similar to those worn by the Victorians, but with embellishments that appeared far more modern. Goggles, gears, leather, top hats, and bustles; all of this created a fanciful scene that took Darien a moment to grasp. More resplendent than its abnormal patrons was the room itself. Aside from the decorative ceiling of copper colored tin and the beige damask wallpaper on three walls, the long rectangular room sported a mural on the fourth wall of a massive steam powered locomotive of red, black, and copper. It puffed through a countryside that did not, could not, exist. The trees were creatively designed from gears and pipes, the blades of grass made of dull copper wire, and the rays of the sun framed an elegant clock face.

It was a breathtaking piece of art, even for a man such as he who cared very little of decoration. The odd doorkeeper through a lazy arm around Darien's shoulders and swept his arm across the air in a flamboyant manner of presentation. "Welcome to Copper Station, mate! The names, Theo. And, I daresay, you must be Darien St. Clare."

The use of his name brought his fascination with the place to an a jolting halt. "How the hell do you know my name?"

The eccentric man, his accent making it clear he was British, simply grinned and pointed toward a button back sofa where a group sat around a young woman. "Why, Lady Fae informed me that you were to be expected."

Theo put two fingers to his lips and blew a mighty whistle. This drew the attention of the afore mentioned Lady Fae and her little posse. She wore a gown of black and gold satin with a low neckline, her slim throat clad in an intricate choker of satin and filigree, her dark brown curls topped with a jaunty mini-top hat. Her eyes were the impossible shade of gold. A familiar shade of gold.

By damn, Lady Fae was...was Miss Fontaine?