Home > The Invention of Sophie Carter

The Invention of Sophie Carter
Author: Samantha Hastings

PROLOGUE


THE WHEELS IN THE POCKET WATCH turned in never-ending circles. Sophie watched the gears move as if hypnotized, until her ten-year-old twin sister, Mariah, nudged her arm.

“Make Edmund smile again. I’m drawing his mouth now.”

Sophie dangled Papa’s golden pocket watch over her baby brother’s bassinet. He cooed and reached for it with his tiny hands. Laughing, Sophie gently touched his dark, downy hair. It was so different from her and Mariah’s curly red locks. But then, he wasn’t their blood relative; Papa and Mama had taken Sophie and Mariah in when their birth mother died bringing them into this world.

Sophie watched Mariah gently sketch Edmund’s upper lip onto the paper in the curve of a smile. Mariah had already drawn Edmund’s round head, closely set eyes, and his little button nose. Even without a bottom lip, the picture clearly resembled their little brother.

“What are you two doing to my baby?” Mama snapped as she entered the room, looming over Sophie and Mariah with an accusing look on her face. She had dark circles around her brown eyes, looking as if she hadn’t slept since Papa left for the Galapagos Islands two weeks before.

Sophie stepped back, away from the bassinet and her mother. She was always the one Mama accused of wrongdoing.

Mariah held up her sketch. “I was only drawing a picture of Edmund, and Sophie was helping me by making him smile,” she explained. “Show her, Sophie. Show her how Edmund laughs.”

Sophie reluctantly dangled the pocket watch by its chain over the bassinet again, and Edmund smiled up at them.

Mama lifted her hand—Sophie shrunk away from her, clutching Papa’s pocket watch against her chest. She wished he hadn’t gone on another voyage, leaving her with a foster mother who didn’t love her, or even like her. Mama only cared for Mariah and, now, for baby Edmund.

“I won’t hold it over him, if you don’t want me to,” Sophie said quickly. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”

“Give me Captain Trenton’s watch,” Mama said, holding out her hand.

Sophie clutched the golden pocket watch even tighter in her little hands and shook her head. “Papa gave it to me so that I could count the seconds until he returned from his voyage.”

“Captain Trenton’s pocket watch is not a toy. It’s very valuable. Now, give it to me.”

“It belongs to Papa.”

“It belongs to me,” Mama said sharply. Edmund began to cry.

“I’ll give it back to Papa,” Sophie pleaded. But Mama wrenched it out of her hands.

“Go to your room and help Nurse pack your things,” Mama said, picking up Edmund, whose cries had become loud wails. “You’re leaving.”

“Are we going to meet Papa?” Mariah asked.

“You’re going to Lyme Regis to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Ellis,” Mama said, bouncing her crying baby. “Mr. Ellis was a friend of your dead father’s. And since your aunt, Lady Bentley, refuses to have anything to do with you, there is nowhere else to send you.”

“How long are we going to stay with them?” Sophie asked.

“Pack all your clothes and ask no more questions.”

They’d never visited anyone before without Mama or Papa. Something was not right about this visit; Sophie could feel it. But before she could ask another question, Mariah took her hand and gently led her from the room. They found Nurse in their bedroom already packing their things into one large trunk.

“What can we do to help?” Mariah asked.

A tear slid down Nurse’s red cheek, and she placed a soft hand on both of their faces. “Nothing, my dear girls. The carriage will be here soon.”

“Are you coming with us?” Sophie asked.

Nurse shook her head, spilling more tears. “I have to stay with Edmund. But you’ll be good girls, though, won’t you?”

“I’m scared,” Mariah said.

Nurse turned and picked up Mariah’s doll with the pink ribbons in its hair and handed it to Mariah. “Hug Lydia if you’re scared, dear. And you won’t be alone; you have Sophie.”

Sophie was scared, too, but she didn’t dare admit it. Nurse picked up Sophie’s identical toy. “I suppose you don’t want to bring Dianetha along.”

“You know I don’t like dolls.”

“How about hugs?” Nurse asked, opening her arms. Sophie stepped into them, breathing in the familiar scent of starched linen. Mariah joined the embrace, and for a moment, everything felt right again.

Until they heard carriage wheels on the pavement in front of their house.

Sophie broke away from Nurse to look out the window. The carriage driver jumped down from his perch onto the cobblestone road.

“Grab your bonnets, girls,” Nurse said as she closed their trunk—the sound had a finality to it.

Mariah started to cry. Sophie took her hand and helped her sister put on her bonnet and coat. Nurse carried the trunk down the stairs, where Mama stood by the front door, holding it open. The girls followed Nurse out to the street, where the driver took the trunk and secured it to the back of the carriage.

Pulling her hand from Sophie’s, Mariah threw her arms around Mama’s middle. Mama’s face softened for only a moment before she said, “Get into the carriage, Mariah.”

Sophie couldn’t leave home without Papa’s pocket watch. How was she supposed to tell time without it? And how was she to know how long it would be until Papa would return for her?

“I forgot Dianetha,” she lied, darting back into the house. Instead of heading for her bedroom, she ran to the drawing room. There was a loose brick on the fireplace where she knew Mama hid her precious pearl necklace. Sophie pulled out the brick and the box behind it. Inside, sitting on top of the pearls, was Papa’s pocket watch.

Sophie grabbed it and shoved it in her pocket, then pushed the box back into its secret spot and replaced the brick. Taking the stairs by twos, she dashed to her room and grabbed the doll.

Panting, Sophie ran out of the house. She hugged Nurse one last time before climbing onto the carriage seat beside Mariah, who was clutching her own doll tightly. The driver closed the door and tipped his hat to Mama. She didn’t say a word, not to him or her foster daughters.

The carriage started forward, and Sophie glanced one last time out the window. Nurse had tears on her face, but Mama looked grimly satisfied. Sophie reached her hand inside her pocket and felt the watch and its linked golden chain. She rubbed her thumb over and over the scrolled decoration on the front of it.

Papa would come for his pocket watch. He would come for her and Mariah.

 

* * *

 

After several hours, the carriage stopped in front of a narrow row house with peeling red paint. There was a sign in the front window that read CLOCKS AND REPAIRS. Mariah clutched her doll with one hand and Sophie’s hand with the other. She inched closer to her twin, feeling less afraid with her near.

“Why did the driver bring us to a clock shop?” Mariah asked. “Do you think there’s been some mistake?”

Before her sister could answer, the driver opened the door and held out his hand to Sophie. He helped Mariah out next and then untied their trunk from the back of the carriage. He placed it in front of the door to the clock shop and knocked three times. Mariah was afraid he would leave them, but he waited until a woman answered the door. She was younger than Mama, but her face was already harshly lined. Her light hair was combed back in a severe bun, and her eyes were a color between gray and blue. The woman’s dress was dark and very worn, nothing like the bright silk gowns that their Mama wore.

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