Bo Balder
Art: Andrew Owens
London should have been a marvel. Steam cars barrelled through town and exogaian ships travelled to the Moon, Venus and Mars. But I was going under fast, living on streets full of soldiers returning from the Boer wars, without money, a place to stay or a job.
My elephant Mitzi had died, and the circus had no reason to keep me on without her. I’m no stranger to hard work, but I hadn’t been able to find any kind of congenial employment. They’d laughed me away at the Zoo for being female and a gypsy. I was for the workhouse or the back streets if I didn’t find a job soon.
The advertisement simply stated they needed an experienced zookeeper, lrg. anim. pref’d, 25 pounds a year. When I rang the bell at the Hampstead mansion, my feet sore from trudging the six miles from south London, I was shaking with hunger.
I followed a footman through the mansion’s gardens to the Menagerie. We passed a sluggish lion, mangy monkeys and bleached-looking flamingos. The footman brought me to an unkempt, surly old gaffer. “This is James, his lordship’s Zookeeper. He will decide on the hiring.”
James seemed exactly like our old lion tamer Antoine, a mean, sloppy drunk. I’d never blamed Simba for taking Antoine’s head off. James scratched his oily hair and shifted his tobacco quid around in his mouth. “Right, then. This way.” He led me past more cages, all of them rank with droppings and old straw. Lazy sod.
The zebra, the baboons and the tapir rooted listlessly. You’ve got to give animals something to do. Circus animals work for a living, not just performing, they all have jobs in hauling and lifting and they get rewarded for them.
We stopped before an outsize cage with thicker-than-normal bars. It smelled odd. I couldn’t put a name or face to these strange tangs of bitter and sweet and sour, and I’ve seen a lot of exotic animals pass through the circus. A heap of something indefinable lay among the rotting straw covering the plank floor. Shadows seemed to hover over it, making it hard to focus on its shape.
James spat out brown phlegm. “That’s it. Bugger’s dying. Ugly as hell, doesn’t do much. But the guvnor likes it, coz it’s exogaian. From the Moon or summat.” He looked at me sideways from his bloodshot eyes.
“From the Moon?”
“That Frenchman, Jools Vern, brought ‘em back with his ether ship.”
I’d heard about that. Our clowns had performed a skit about Jules Verne and his exogaian wife.
“Vern sold the critters to his lordship before he disappeared under the sea. But it’s not been worth the money. Just lies there moping,” James said.
In my experience, a moping animal usually has good reason to do so. I just needed to find out what. “Does it eat grass and such, or does it eat meat?”
He looked at me as if I were barmy. “It’s a critter, like a pig. I feeds it slops, like all proper critters.” He turned and made to stomp off.
“Am I hired, then, Mr. James?”
He shrugged. “See anyone else wants to do it?” He disappeared among the cages.
I stood undecided for moment. But then again, I was destitute and alone, and at least he offered me a roof over my head and regular meals.
If I could keep whatever was in that cage alive.
I hoiked up my new uniform. The creature’s presence made me feel peculiar. I kept wiping my hands on my pinny, but they were still sticky.
James had kept me busy all morning sweeping straw in the other cages, but now I could start getting to know my main charge. If I closed my eyes, the smells were just like the circus.
I sat down on the empty slops bucket. “I want to help you. Get to know you. I worked in a circus before. I love elephants, and Mitzi the most. But she died. Maybe from grief, because her child was sold off and the other one died. Who knows with elephants? But I had to leave the circus after because I had no act anymore.”
I paused. I was sure the creature was listening, and I needed a less harrowing topic. If not for its sake, then for mine. It appeared a bit more present and aware than before, but it still made me feel odd. One moment it seemed to fill the whole cage, the next it seemed about my own size. The sense of itching dread came and went.
“I do miss the circus, though. Mitzi and Simba – he’s the bad-tempered lion – and Hora and Joey, the baby elephants. And Prancer and Dancer and Joy and Jumper, the horses. And director Sferracavallo was always kind to me. He took me in, named me after his mother, even though I’m a gypsy. Amelia Sferracavallo, that’s me. Treated me like a daughter. But then he turned me off with nothing when Mitzi died.” I swallowed. Why couldn’t I keep it bloody cheerful?
When it didn’t react, I laid out some oats, clover and hay. A thick grey trunk wiggled out snaky fast and flicked over to the first heap of fodder. Its speed surprised me, but I collected myself and moved closer to have a better look. It held still, quivering. I felt a wave of fear crash through my body, touching first my stomach, then the skin of my face, leaving my forehead tight and dripping with sweat.
I wanted to be patient with it but couldn’t. It seemed likely to die at any moment, which would cost me my job and any chance I had of ever returning to the circus.
I breathed out to calm myself, and hopefully the animal as well.
“Let me see you,” I crooned. “I won’t harm you. Come to me.”
I took another step forward.
A great bulk reared up. Its shape was formless; huge, undulating masses of pockmarked grey hide, dry and brittle in most places, oozing and moist from straight slashes all over it. If it simply dropped down on me it would crush me to a pulp. It had no eyes or mouth, no legs or flippers, nothing, not even a trunk like before. For moments we hung in the balance; it poised to squelch me, I poised to run. Scents and feelings crashed through me like surf, swelling and retreating.
Swallowing, thinking of the distrustful lion in the circus, I put my hands down on the mottled gray hide. It felt cool, brittle, writhing where I’d expected hot and rough. A wave of feeling rose up in me. I’d been abandoned in this heavy place, I burned as if in a fire, under light that was too bright and sounds that were too harsh. Each breath crawled in thick and hot and disgusting.
I almost stepped back, fighting a rising nausea, but I knew I had to stand firm. “I’m sorry you feel that way. This must be a strange world to you. I’ll do what I can to help you.”
The air was so taut it almost twanged. I pictured sheets hung over the cage, hosing it down with water to cool it. The idea of water made it cringe away under my palm.
“No water, then. I’ll see about some shade for you. Now be a good boy and sniff this food. You might even like some of it.”
The tension snapped like a rotten hair band.
The creature fell away from my hand and shrank down, crumpling in on itself. My fear evaporated. The snout or fingertip or whatever it was nosed delicately from leaf to leaf. It retreated after the last herb. I sensed exhaustion and disappointment. I waited for a long time, but it sent me no more feelings.
The next day, when I was just done sweeping, I heard voices approaching from the house. I took my broom to the already swept floor. Masters like to see their servants work.
But when I looked up again, casual-like, the small troupe approaching through the Menagerie was a far grander sort of people than a mere head Zookeeper. The Marquess was an elderly gentleman in morning suit, clean shaven with caterpillar eyebrows, accompanied by lesser gents and a very tall floating lady. Floating?
When they ambled closer – the ladies with scented handkerchiefs before their noses, the gents with flasks of liquor in their hands – I made a deep curtsey.
The floating lady kept drawing my eye. She wasn’t actually floating; she was being wheeled around on a dolly like a stack of luggage. She was strapped on tightly, right over her mutton-sleeved dress of purple bombazine and striped underskirt. Did the Marquess fear her running off, or flying away? She didn’t seem to have wings.
A black veil obscured her face, but her complexion shone through floridly. Even discounting the luggage cart, she was enormously tall, topping His Lordship by a head.
“You may close your mouth now, Zookeeper,” the Marquess said. “How fares the critter?”
I curtseyed again. “Better, my lord. I’m feeding it up, as you see.”
His eyes roamed around the neatly swept cage and back to me. “It had better shape up. Hasn’t done a bally thing but slouch and pong since I bought the three of them.”
Three? Had the creature’s mate or children died, perhaps?
“Get it to show us some tricks or it’s off to the knackers’. Carry on.”
He could sack me with a snap of his fingers. A mere nod, even. I had to produce results and quickly.
“As you see, Lady Ptarthis,” one of the less important men in the entourage started, “the vermiform’s innate adaptability to Terrestrial gravitation is inferior to yours, as I’ve set out in Eindeutige Beschreibung der Würmer von Mons Olympus. It is your splendid will and courage that set an example to us all.”
“You are too kind, Doctor Ssschmidt,” a deep resounding voice spoke from behind the veil. Lady Ptarthis sounded more like a booming underwater creature than an ordinary woman. And hadn’t the doctor just implied she was also an exogaian? I couldn’t be sure because of those strange words he used. Her face was very red, indeed. I checked for a strip of skin between her gloves or at her neck, but she was completely covered up.
As if she had felt my gaze, she flicked up her veil and gave me a look. My skin goosebumped from my neck down to my calves, and my hands turned cold. It last only a second, then she was covered again. I couldn’t recall seeing her face at all.
At the servants’ dinner in the kitchen that night, I asked about getting herbs from the kitchen garden. “For the creature. It’s my job to feed it and it won’t eat.”
Cook ladled the plate next to me extra high. I sat between the footman who’d wheeled the exogaian lady and my boss, which meant more scrutiny.
“Those herbs are for people, not animals,” she said and gave me a serving of fragrant stew. She knew how to put a sprig of rosemary to good use, she did. “Forward girl.”
I put my head down and ate, hoping they’d forget about me.
The footman pinched my elbow. I jabbed him in the ribs. His hand crept to my thigh, but I didn’t want to attract more attention by slapping him.
“Ask Lady Ptarthis,” he breathed into my ear, tickling mightily. “She’s very interested in the creature. Visits it every night.”
She sounded like a very odd lady, even for someone who came from the Moon. Getting carted around like a traveller’s trunk, sneaking around at night to visit the creature. I wondered what she was up to. Nothing good, I bet.
Maybe Lady P. knew what the creature needed to eat, her being from the same place. And if she visited it every night, well, that smoothed the way for a chat. I wasn’t sure if she was fiancée or mistress or something different altogether, but in neither case could I ask for an audience with her, could I? But at night, I could sneak out and wait for her in the cage.
After dinner we servants trooped up to our rooms in the attic. The little maids were asleep as soon as they hit their beds, so I stuffed my old clothes in the bed, nicked their candle ends and snuck downstairs. Cook sat nodding in front of the fire and never roused as I tiptoed past her.
The Menagerie was quiet, its hunched structures black against the colorless night sky. No light burned in Mr. James’ cottage. The animals snuffled and sighed.
“It’s all right, Mr. Zebra, only me. Go back to sleep.” Maybe I should steal the zebra instead of the creature. Probably easier. But also less extraordinary.
I opened the door to the creature’s cage. Something twitched in the straw. It hadn’t done that any of the earlier times I’d entered. Was it because of the night? I should have brought a lamp; the stubs of candle wouldn’t cast light past my own feet.
I stepped closer. “It’s me, Amelia.”
It stirred. I sank down on my haunches. My fingertips felt rough hot hide, but it flinched away from me immediately. I contained my sigh and let out a long slow breath. Animals notice impatience.
I sat down. I could stay awake a whole night. There had been plenty of opportunity for me to take breaks, as Mr. James wasn’t a very vigilant overseer.
I left my hand where it was. I pretended I was sitting on the perch of my old wagon, with a bottle of wine and a cigar, looking up at the stars, with the smells of crushed herbs, the sound of crickets or someone playing the violin. Letting the horse walk at its own pace, enjoying just such a late spring night.
I felt the creature inching closer. After what seemed like a very long time, maybe as much as half an hour, its skin touched me. I felt the same roughness and lack of body warmth as before. I didn’t speak, just sat there, letting it get the sense of me, waiting for the next move. I knew it would come, although maybe not tonight. I could simply start sleeping here, better than in the stuffy attic.
I almost did fall asleep, but then the creature jerked its appendage away from me. I sat up straight. A faint screeching and crunching sounded. Wheels over gravel. I withdrew quietly to the darkest corner of the cage, as far from the creature as I could get.
I waited and sure enough, the funny cart arrived, with Lady Ptarthis on it like an upright portmanteau. Pushed by the same footman who’d alerted me to her night-time outings. An oil lamp hanging from the top of the cart threw dancing shadows over the gravel and the sleeping lion.
The footman wheeled her to the cage entrance and assisted her off the cart. She leaned heavily on him, as if she were infirm or old. The atmosphere in the cage changed, becoming charged with fear and something else, something bright and eager. I thought the fear was the creature’s, and the eagerness originated with Lady Ptarthis.
The footman took a chair from the back of the cart and set it up near the creature, at what I thought of as its hindquarters. I wanted to get further back into the darkest part of the cage, but the back wall stopped me. I tried to breathe without sound.
Ptarthis clambered into the cage, as slow and careful as if she was eighty. The footman held her up while she clung to the door jambs, and then one shaky half-crouching step took her to the chair. She collapsed on it as if her weight was too much for her to carry. She was tall and slender, looking as if she had no strength in her back at all. Maybe she was sick.
The footman pushed the chair with Ptarthis in it closer to the creature. I heard a snick and something shiny caught the light of the oil lantern. A knife? Whatever for?
The footman brushed the straw from the exogaian creature. Its dark bulk seemed dull under the yellowy lantern, inert, no limbs or trunks visible. I wondered why it was so afraid. Ptarthis lifted the knife with another flicker of light on metal and wielded it horizontally. It sounded like a fish being filleted. My skin cringed away from the burning pain as the knife cut through the hide. It was strange, half-seeing it happen in the wavering light of the oil lamp, having to guess at it, and at the same time feeling someone cutting into me - into it. It was all I could do not to cry out and wrench myself away from the knife.
Ptarthis brought a glistening piece of stuff to her mouth. I noticed only now that she wasn’t veiled. There wasn’t enough light to have a good look at her features. The wash of the oil lamp on a gleaming cheekbone and pointy teeth didn’t reassure me. The sharp teeth tore at the wet dark thing she held up.
Ptarthis devoured about half the fillet in big tearing bites. The creature’s flesh must be quite tender, or perhaps she didn’t chew, just swallow, like many big predators. Then she handed the remainder to the footman, who held it two feet away from his body.
I must have made some kind of sound after all, maybe a little gasp.
“Ssooo,” she said. “Who’ss there?”
I said nothing. It might be to both our advantages to pretend neither of us had ever been here. She jerked the lantern from the footman’s hand and swung it round to the back of the cage. “Reveal yourself!”
I pushed myself upright and took a small step forward. “It’s the Zookeeper, Milady.”
Large gold eyes blinked at me. I read no comprehension in them.
“I take care of the creature, Milady.”
“That’s right,” the footman said.
Ptarthis thrust the lantern back at him without taking her eyes off me. He stumbled backwards.
I felt like a rabbit caught in a snake’s gaze - and no sooner had I thought it, then I remembered the width of her jaw and her hissing speech. Perhaps Lady Ptarthis had some sinuous forebears, as we were supposed to have monkeys swinging from branch to branch.
She beckoned me to her. I obeyed, not sure if it was against my will. As I inched closer, I smelled an odd, vaguely disturbing scent. It reminded me a bit of the creature, but it was sharper, more savage. Dry, dusty, maybe a hint of sulphur.
When I thought myself still safely out of reach, she stretched out an immensely long, thin arm and yanked me closer by my apron. Her hand twisted and clamped my breast. I gasped in surprise, not least at the answering warmth in my belly. The footman made a strangled noise. The light from the oil lamp diminished. He must have turned away from us. No help there.
We froze, Ptarthis and I, she with my breast in her hand. It was a large hand, and my bosom not quite a handful. I didn’t know what to do. Perhaps this was normal behavior among her class. What did I know? In the circus we had men who were known to visit each other’s wagons. I had heard rumors about women who did the same.
So I stood fast and returned the intense look from her round yellow eyes, although I couldn’t begin to guess what her half-seen facial expressions meant. She pulled me closer, and I yielded to minimize the pain.
She rent my pinafore with one sharp-tipped finger. I gulped.
“I could just take my dress off, Milady,” I said. “I’d rather not be punished for ruining a perfectly good garment.”
Lady Ptarthis didn’t speak, but removed her claw from the neck of my borrowed dress. I loosened it as quickly as I could, determined to keep my eyes on her and not think about the footman. The situation was dangerous and embarrassing enough without taking him into account. I unbuttoned my blouse and bodice, leaving my back covered in hopes of getting some clothes back on as quickly as possible. I unhooked my skirts and then stood there in my bloomers and naked chest, shivering, though the night was warm.
I think Ptarthis retracted the clawed nails, because I felt only soft fingertips as she prodded and poked me all over. She seemed especially fascinated by any fat-covered, more cushiony bits, of which I had but a few modest ones, having only recently started to eat proper meals again. I tried to keep my teeth from chattering.
She lifted her hand to my breast, supporting herself on the back of the chair, and tweaked my nipple. It hurt, and to my surprise, she stopped.
With a wave of her free hand, she invited me to lie down. I was too afraid not to comply. In spite of my decision not to, I couldn’t help a quick glance towards the footman’s back. It was rigid, and he stared off into the distance, though his breath might have been a trifle heavy.
I supported the Lady Ptarthis in her tortuous attempts lie down next to me. She hissed in pain as her knees hit the floor of the cage.
She put a hot dry hand on my thigh and proceeded upwards. I lay stiff and uncomfortable at first, wondering why she was doing this. I’d expected to be asked to perform a duty such as she was performing on me – why was it the other way around? As long as I could think clearly, before new and not unpleasant sensations swept me, I thought hard.
She needed the creature. I needed the creature.
Her cooperation might provide me with a chance to bring a crowd-pleasing animal to the circus. I might go home again. As for Ptarthis, she could be gotten rid of somehow.
The creature lay sluggish all day. An air of satisfaction emanated from it, which I contemplated incessantly. Had Ptarthis not maimed the creature? But instead it seemed better rather than worse.
The next few weeks slithered by in a daze of waiting for the pinch of my elbow at the dinner table. That was how the footman signaled I was to be present in the cage at night.
I don’t know why I went each time, but I did. And as soon as Ptarthis was wheeled up, crunching over the nighttime gravel, I’d quiver like a bowstring, because soon after the filleting knife she’d come to me and touch me. I wished to be with her every night, but truth was I needed my sleep. I became as sluggish as the creature by day. It snoozed safely under its straw, I leaned on my broom and catnapped.
I worked hard but didn’t seem to be able to gain weight. Even Cook, not a softhearted woman by the most giving of definitions, piled my plate higher and slipped me buttered bread between meals.
One of the upper maids said Ptarthis wasn’t his lordship’s plaything, he was hers. That she’d bailed him out of a boatload of debts and consequently he did her bidding in everything. She must have come down on the exogaian ship with more than her weight in jewelry or gold, the servants speculated. But Cook said it wasn’t true. The Marquess had bought the creature, Ptarthis and another as a lot, all three together. Scandalized the whole household, it did.
“Just a kept woman,” Cook said and sniffed definitively.
“You coming down with something?” Mr. James asked. “The help these days, ruddy weaklings.”
I stood with bowed head, but at this question I straightened up and tried to look perky. “Healthy as a horse, guv,” I said. “Never get sick.”
Something was sapping my strength. If I didn’t want to keel over or get the sack, I couldn’t wait any longer to make my move. Next dinner, I breathed my request into the footman’s ear.
The next day, after having gulped down a second helping of blancmange, and feeling overfull because of it, I was summoned to the drawing room. Lady Ptarthis wished to speak to me. A spike of guilt mixed with hope stabbed me in the stomach and my cheeks grew hot. This could go so many ways.
I stood up and smoothed my poorly repaired pinafore. I didn’t sense much sympathy from the other servants as I made to leave the kitchen. I was too new, I supposed, with a job that was too different.
The between maid showed me into the small drawing room off the great hall. Lady Ptarthis reclined on a chaise-longue, another ‘tweenie’ fanning her face. She dismissed them both and beckoned me closer. She was dressed in a loose silk gown and bed jacket dripping with lace and beads. In spite of this informal attire, she also wore a tiara, several rows of necklaces, twenty or so bracelets, a pair of long earrings and something shiny around her waist.
I’d heard from the other servants she never touched her food, never ate anything at all. They wondered.
I thought I knew.
As I navigated between aspidistras and side tables laden with porcelain figurines, sweat broke out all over my face, my scalp prickled, I was close to vomiting. Only by exercising the strongest willpower could I make myself walk up to Ptarthis, but I couldn’t close the last two yards. I hadn’t felt like that in the cage last night.
Ptarthis’s alien face remained impassive, or at least I detected no sign of emotion in her fierce, snake-like eyes.
“Come to me.”
“Yes, Milady,” I mumbled, swaying, black spots before my eyes. I clenched my muscles harder. It must be Ptarthis who was causing this dread. But I was no rabbit, and I didn’t plan to be eaten.
“Closer,” she rasped.
I stepped closer, swaying dizzily. Her widespread fingers hovered over my belly, almost but not quite touching. I felt no sicker, but no better either.
“I have a proposal for you,” I croaked out. “The creature is dying here. I can take it somewhere it can be looked after and get healthy again.”
“Ah,” she said.
I waited. She didn’t blink or move.
“I thought…I thought you cared for it. I thought you might pay for the journey to the circus. To France.”
“Sir-kus?”
“Bright place, many lights?”
“House.”
“I suppose so, Milady.”
I waited, the fear that I might throw up growing stronger, steadied by the fear of touching her if I fell.
“Where is France?”
“On the continent, Milady. Across the sea.”
Her lip curled. “Water? Can we fly?”
I stared. “I don’t have wings, Milady. Do you?”
Her mouth opened wide, soundlessly. Was she laughing? “I approve plan. I will accompany. We leave here. Go far away from Marquess. With you. You please me.”
I shuddered, whether from fear or delight I couldn’t say. I’d been preparing for such a request, of course, since I’d calculated she couldn’t survive without the creature, but it still seemed a lot to pay. But my return to the circus was worth a few unnatural acts.
“It will cost money, Milady,” I said. “Do you have any?”
She fished a stack of bills and a pouch full of guineas out of her purse and showed them to me. “That is money, yes? Enough?”
I swallowed and said it was.
“He footman will arrange travel to boat. You arrange travel to bright place.”
She pushed me away and stretched out her long, sinuous body in the slanting rays of the evening sun.
I popped out of the door like a Jack-in-the-box, light-headed with relief. I leaned against the wall. I ought to have removed myself from the hall immediately, so none of the family would have to encounter me, but I needed a moment.
“She takes you like that, doesn’t she? And the men don’t notice a thing,” the little between maid said, stepping out of the covered door that led to the servants’ passages. “Come in, quickly. I hear people coming up the stairs.”
Ptarthis hadn’t sickened me like that in the cage. And how did the Marquess stand her presence if this was her usual effect on people?
I followed the maid to the attic, lay down on the bed in my shift and thought. The footman was going to arrange travel to Dover and across the channel. Then I’d have to find the circus. In spring they traveled the coasts of Belgium and France to serve the rich clientele that took the sea air in Knokke and Deauville.
I asked the butler for a sheet of paper and a stamp to write to the ringmaster, my adopted father Giuseppe Sferracavallo. He’d have to take me back if I brought the creature. I only had to find a way to manage all this in secrecy and without letting Ptarthis know she’d never reach France. She was wealthy and well-respected. I needed the creature more than she did.
Once we arrived in Dover, I left the sleeping Lady Ptarthis in her cabin on the Dover Dilly and snuck on board the Master of Calais. I’d arranged passage on it for the creature, also via the footman. Easy to guess for what payment.
I walked the creature to the loading dock. I clamped my hands around the bars of the cage. “How are you doing?” I asked.
It returned a wordless calm.
I whispered my goodbyes and stumbled to my cabin, feeling worse with every pitching set of stairs I had to climb. My shabby day clothes got me a few looks, especially when I went into Second Class.
I opened the cabin door and looked straight into Ptarthis’s giant yellow orbs. She sat on the tiny chair wedged in between the bunks and the washstand.
I gasped. Or perhaps even screamed, for it seemed I heard an echo of a heartrending screech in the air.
She bared her double rows of pointy teeth. “Did we not agree travel to continent together, Amelia?”
I grasped at the straws of my dignity. “Of course we did. I did not expect you in a Second Class cabin, is all.”
She raised her brow in a perfect imitation of a highborn lady’s disapproval. “No lie. I know.”
My cheeks burned when I realized she’d probably got her information from the footman in return for the same services she granted me. Ptarthis waited, patiently, inhumanly still, not even blinking those enormous eyes, until I had collected my wits.
“Right. Will you let me get my things?” I said. I felt numb, resigned to whatever might happen. She’d cast me off without a penny, or worse, give me over to the Gendarmes. Gone were my chances of a new life within the circus. I’d never find a better substitute for my dear Mitzi than the creature.
“Come,” she said.
She preceded me out of the door, stooping through the low doorway. A steward stood waiting with a push-chair. He walked her through the still heaving corridors with me following for lack of alternatives. The ship was on the open sea, there was nowhere to go. On dry land I could have run for it, although being a fugitive is not enjoyable. One is cold, hungry and thirsty, and continually afraid. I didn’t look forward to trying it again. My weeks at the Marquess’ had made me realize how wonderful it was to have a safe place to sleep and a full belly.
Instead of rising up to the First Class Deck and the captain, or any kind of officer, we descended. I followed mutely, too stunned to even wonder where we were going.
I realized I’d descended these stairs before, when I’d been looking for the creature. It was easier by day, although one could now see the shabbiness and disrepair of the ship. We were going to the cargo hold.
As we approached the crate, my physical discomfort lessened. My head cleared, I was no longer nauseous, and my legs felt steadier. Now I knew I was afraid, not sick. Very afraid. I just didn’t know of what. Ptarthis wouldn’t hurt me, right? And I didn’t think the creature could.
The steward put a brake on the push chair, received something out of Ptarthis’ purse for his trouble and left with a bow.
When I put my hand on the crate, an odd feeling assailed me. At first an enormous relief when the nausea of Ptarthis’ presence was lifted completely. Then there was giddiness, like the first drink, or the anticipation of great pleasure. The fear was gone, although my stomach still felt peculiar.
I leant my forehead against the plank until I’d steadied. I cast my eyes up to Ptarthis.
A stray beam of sunlight caught her copper skin and lent it radiance. Her golden eyes smiled down at me and I shivered at the memory of pleasure by her talons and tongue. She was gorgeous. I wanted to lean into her breast to inhale her fragrance, to bask in her presence.
I remembered my lack of repulsion for her, that first night with the creature, and now, and the discomfort with Ptarthis when it hadn’t been present. Why was that?
“I feed it,” Ptarthis said.
The creature sent me approval and pleasure. And at last I understood. The Marquess had said there had been three of them originally, and I hadn’t understood that he’d meant not three creatures, but Ptarthis, the creature and a third person or being.
It had never wanted to be alone with me; in fact, it couldn’t. It needed someone to sustain it, as Ptarthis needed it to eat. I was to be the necessary third party in the triad, to replace the one that had died. I was the only one who could eat and drink on this world. In return, they would make me happy. Ptarthis would give me physical joy, the creature mental pleasure. It would make me able to bear Ptarthis’ proximity.
I was trapped. I couldn’t move for the delicious languor they imposed upon me, but my mind was running around like a mouse on a wheel. I recalled my fear of a minute ago, but it wasn’t as real as the joyous expectation of Ptarthis’ embrace.
“We should still join the circus,” I said, albeit with a moan. “There is no better place for you to remain undetected, if that is what you wish. Although I cannot see why you left the Marquess.”
Ptarthis moved her brows. In the light of the sunbeam I could see they were painted on. Did she have any body hair at all? The speculation caused a shudder down my spine and I had to close my eyes.
“He man,” Ptarthis hissed. “Wanted me to bow him. I bow no man.”
Ha. She could talk. She hadn’t had to bow to bloody Mr. James and every other man I’d ever met.
“So are we agreed? We find my circus, and we can live a good life.”
I didn’t mind being the mistress of an alien creature that much. If I could have my place in the circus, with a grand animal to draw punters, I’d be happy. Ptarthis could do worse than sit in a booth and be the snake woman. There could be nothing wrong with this prospect whatsoever.
“This is agreed,” Ptarthis said. “We will be free and enjoy each other.”
The creature added a shot of bliss to my already whitening thoughts.
Bo lives and works close to Amsterdam. Bo is the first Dutch author to have been published in F&SF. Clarkesworld, Analog and other places. Her SF novel The Wan was published by Pink Narcissus Press. When not writing, she knits, reads and gardens, preferably all three at the same time.
For more about her work, you can visit her website or find Bo on Facebook.
