A Clockwork Christmas Angel by J. W. Stacks

London 1866
    Please don’t let the dreams come again .
    It became her mantra and most fervent prayer. She stove off sleep for over two days, driving herself until sheer exhaustion forced her into dreamless unconsciousness. Her body surrendered to its demands. She avoided looking in the mirror, fearing the frightful appearance of her sunken eyes and gaunt expression, and slid underneath the bedcovers.
    Please don’t let the dreams come again .
    She closed her eyes.
    They returned with a sadistic vengeance—the alarmed calls from the sidewalks—the thunderous impact of forged hooves on cobblestone. The noxious stench of burning coal, the relentless pulse of spring-driven pistons, the mangling of flesh—the cracking of delicate bones. And the pain—always the pain.
    Abigail started upright in her bed with a cry, sweat molding her nightgown to her body despite the chill permeating the room. She ran her hands through her hair, the faint tick tick sound of her arm reminding her of the origin of her nightmares. Her brass limb gleamed faintly in the moonlight. It was a beautiful monstrosity, unmistakably feminine and a reminder she was damned in the eyes of God. Thou shall not make for thyself any graven image, drummed in her brain of its own volition.
    Hope of an undisturbed night was extinguished with a groan as she slipped from under the linens and made her way to the windowsill. The wood floor, cold against her bare feet, failed to penetrate her glacial melancholy. She had once been Abigail Hogarth, a renowned theater sensation. The house filled nightly with an audience eager to see the woman The Times proclaimed as “the actress of our glorious century.” Admirers and lavish gifts flowed then like a never-ending fountain. Now her life was a cheap room in a ramshackle boarding house. Silks and the latest in Paris fashions had been replaced with oft-darned calico.
    It was Christmas Eve. The view from her window did nothing for her spirits. The pristine white snow she remembered from her childhood was now tinged with perpetual soot that belched from the smokestacks that had taken over London like an invading army welcomed in to despoil and pillage. The church bells tolled two o’clock without an answering chime from her own nightstand clock. Abigail sighed. The cheap timepiece was as broken as she was.
    She vividly remembered the night it happened. How could she not? Seared into her mind with the intensity of a hot poker, it still pained her. She’d garnered extra attention for her portrayal of Grace in London Assurance and, following that evening’s performance, despite her protests of needing to retire early, had been playfully bullied to accompany several members of their company out for the evening. She shouldn’t have imbibed so heavily. The lingering pleasure of a standing ovation, combined with the spirited conversation and laughter, robbed her common sense—the same common sense already under assault by her increasing exhaustion—and aided no doubt by several glasses of sherry.
    Her metallic fingers idly ran along the window pane, tracing imaginary flecks of snow as they fell, painfully aware of the lack of the sensation of cold in her deformity. Abigail vaguely remembered their little band of drunken fools spilling out into the night, high on life and spirits. None of them should have been allowed to go anywhere or to be trusted with anything short of falling into bed, but she tottered out into the street to hail a cab, oblivious to the steam carriage barreling down upon her. Only the cries of the passersby and the shouts of the carriage driver penetrated her stupor and saved her life. The lead steam horse merely clipped her, sending her spinning and down to the stones and cutting off her slurred curse of indignation. Only her arm had suffered the agony of being ground underneath the horrendous weight of hundreds of stones worth of pig iron and brass.
    The next few weeks were a merciful blur of laudanum dreams