fourteen

 

 

I FOUND CRASH by the campfire with Mrs. Hudson. Crazy and unnecessary as it may have been, I felt a stab of jealousy in the gut to see them looking so chummy. The moment passed, however, the second she looked up and saw me over the flames.

“Crash, what’s—”

He shushed me by shoving a flask into my hand. “Never mind, Dandy. You shouldn’t be working tonight. None of us should.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re lying.”

“Nonsense.”

“You’re lying or you’ve done hit some righteous high.”

He waved me off. “Honest, Dandy. Look over there.”

I followed Crash’s gesture and saw Jonathan and Artemesia, snuggled up on a bench together, enjoying their first night as a wedded pair. The smiles were plastered on their faces, along with a dreamy look in their eyes any time they happened to glance at each other.

“Remember what’s important,” Crash said. “Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to tell me about Moira and such? This is a wedding feast, not an inquisition. Go on. The stick figures will be there tomorrow. Tonight enjoy yourself.”

“He’s right,” Martha said, nudging me in the ribs. Her fingers slipped through mine. “More important things.”

Crash clapped me on the shoulder and waded into the crowd. Martha drew me over to the bench that had become our own of late. Darkness fell over our little lot and the party had yet to reach its full swing. Though the carousel continued its jangling waltz in the distance, the campfire attracted a squeezebox, drums and fiddle, like honey draws flies.

The familiar tunes played and the missus and I danced our awkward steps. Stories were swapped and new ones formed. Sooner, rather than later, Crash jumped up on a chair and rose above the crowd. He drew everyone’s attention to him with a ripping arpeggio on his violin before handing the instrument down to Slaney.

“Ladies and gents,” Crash said, “I wanted to thank you all for the hard work of making Jon and Artemesia’s wedding go off with nary a hitch. Mr. Slaney tells me that he and Diamond Joe’s gang would tear down the whole carousel tomorrow, but I wanted to let you all know that... well, that won’t be the case this time.”

A chorus of intrigue went ’round the fire.

“Do tell,” Artemesia called.

Crash fixed me with his stare. “I know you didn’t want me to announce it yet, Dandy, but... what better time is there than this? Friends, tomorrow Dandy will ride the carousel, and our dear Mrs. Hudson will become Mrs. Walker.”

As if the cheers weren’t deafening enough, Martha clapped her hands over my ears and pulled my face to her lips in a searing kiss. Then she wrapped her arms around my neck. With her lips against my ear, she whispered, “Just go with it. He’s got a plan. Now make it look good, Dandy, and kiss me proper!”

I couldn’t very well turn down a request like that. I dipped her low and laid one on her, much to the amusement and joy of the assembled crowd. Before I could catch my breath, it felt like they were all there, pressed in a circle around me and my lady. Drinks were taken, toasts given and congratulations offered for what seemed a god’s own time. Truth be told, I started to enjoy the idea. Hell, I’d thought about it already, hadn’t I? Why not take her for my wife? Tomorrow was just as good a day as any, right?

When the scrum peeled back, Crash stood thumbing his suspenders. “I couldn’t be happier,” he bellowed.

I pulled him into a brotherly embrace and asked in his ear, “What the hell are you on about, Crash?”

“Solving mysteries, I told you.”

“You also said we wasn’t going to bother with that tonight.”

We pulled apart and his face was boyish guilt.

“You lied,” I confirmed.

“Of course I did.”

“And you let him?” I asked Martha.

My faux fiancée bowed. “If it gets a girl what she wants, I don’t suppose I’ll complain.”

I smiled at her. “Is that so, Martha?”

“What can I say? I like it when you call me missus.”

We would’ve kissed if that bastard Haus hadn’t pushed me off to the side of the lot where we could speak a little more candidly.

“So, here’s the plan... what?”

He’d just noticed me glaring at him.

“What? What is that face?”

“I was going to kiss my fiancée, Crash.”

“Don’t bury yourself in the part on my account, Dandy, I need to talk to you about... oh; oh, dear. I’ve gone and bungled things haven’t I?”

“You mean other than proposing to Martha on my behalf before I had the chance to do so? For starters, yeah.”

His mouth flopped open and shut like a cod’s. “You’d... but I didn’t think... you haven’t even—”

“Do you think I sat in our wagon every night pining for you to come home, Crash?”

“Oh, my. Really?”

I nodded.

“Well, it’s about bloody time, then.” He hugged me, genuine glee in his smile. “Tomorrow? You’ll go through with it tomorrow?”

“Life’s too damn short.”

“So is she,” he countered jovially. “Here I thought you’d never get off your ass and so much as dance with her by the fire!”

“Strange days we’re livin’ in, Crash. There are more important things than rules and the laws I was brought up with, I suppose.”

“Well, here’s to more important things,” he said soberly.

“Now, you were sayin’ something about a plan?”

“Oh, right!” He clapped his hands together and looked about to make sure we weren’t overheard. “So, here it is, then...”

 

 

NIGH ONTO THREE strikes after midnight, the lot was a very different place. The carousel stood still and empty, its lights dim. The campfire long-since doused and the band’s last note long gone, the Wonder Show’s residents had returned to tents and wagons for warmth and sweet slumber.

Martha and I had taken to her tent at a reasonable hour, but hadn’t had the chance to dally. Before long Crash had rolled the old knife wheel up to the rear of the tent. Carefully, quietly, we’d set it up behind Martha’s bed.

“Odd sort of headboard,” she observed, “but it could have its purposes.”

“Really, woman,” I said, “you are a wondrous creature.”

She pinched me on the rear.

“Later, you two,” Crash warned. “It all needs to be in place with you lot out of the tent before the vandal comes.”

“You’re sure he’s going to?”

“Sure as fire burns.”

Martha retrieved a dress from one of the steamer trunks at the foot of the bed. The gown had yellowed over time, but there was no doubt in my mind that it had once been white as starlight. And by the look of it, Martha’d probably shone just as lovely when she wore it on her wedding day. Satin cut just to her unorthodox size, with long sleeves and a veil made of a fabric sheer as a whisper.

Her hand lingered over a velvet box inside the trunk. Beside it was a photo of a handsome fellow barely old enough to call himself a man. He wore the uniform and a new recruit’s innocence. She gave the picture a glance, the box a tiny pat, then closed the trunk.

“Here ’tis, Crash,” she said, offering him the dress.

“You’re sure?” he asked. “I can find something else if this is too much to ask.”

She shook her head and stared at me, eyes moist but full of hope and affection. “I’ll not wear it again, Sanford. If it turns out unharmed, that’s fine, too, but it’s just fabric, ain’t it?”

He placed a kiss on her forehead. “Remarkable woman.”

“Aye, Boss, and don’t you forget it.”

Once the trap was set, we three dashed out of the rear of the tent and waited out the rest of the night in the storage shed. The missus and I sat on a pile of canvas, enjoying the relative quiet together and the obvious strain on my roommate. By his own reckoning, we had to keep mum as mice for his plan to unfold. It must’ve pained Crash something fierce to keep silent all that time, what with not hearing the sound of his own voice. He paced and plodded between stacks of wood and towers of metal poles.

Gradually the noise died down, and that’s how we found ourselves skulking on the lot at three in the goddamn morning when all sane folks was sleeping off the buzz.

We set up watch from a spot not too far off the circle of tents and wagons, where we could observe Martha’s tent unnoticed. Just about the time my leg began to cramp up from taking a knee for so long, a figure moved through the darkness on a course for my lady’s home.

Steel glinted in the moonglow. It was the last I saw of the silhouette before he drew back the flap and entered the tent.

I rose to my feet, ready to swoop in and catch the vandal red-handed. Crash stayed me with a hand on the shoulder.

“They’ve taken the bait,” Martha said. “Now what?”

“Bide,” Crash answered. “The deed’s not yet done. Mrs. Hudson, dear? Would you be so kind as to go rouse the Professor? Tell him I’d love to speak with him at your cart.”

She nodded and waddled off toward McGann’s vardo.

“She’s out of harm’s way. Let’s go.”

“Patience, Dandy. Don’t you want to relish this? Savor the suspense a moment longer and let it wash over you before we draw back the curtain and see the gears and cogs at work?”

The thick noise of a blade sinking into wood cut through the night air.

I burned with the idea that, had we not been expecting just such a thing, my beloved might have taken that knife to one of her more tender parts.

“That,” I said, “is all the suspense I care to relish. I’m going in.”

It was Haus’s turn to keep up with me for a change. I ran to the tent and burst through the flap, my flashlight beam catching the vandal in the act of carving a new symbol into the knife-thrower’s wheel.

Between the culprit’s black clothing and the shadow cast by my light, he looked small and large all at once. Our presence didn’t stop him neither. He kept on carving, the only sounds his rapid, feral breathing and the splintering of the wood.

The symbol was a house. Two lines for the walls, two coming together in a point for the roof. Crudely drawn flames sprouted from the top of the sigil.

“What the hell?” I asked.

Startled by my voice, the carver whipped around to stare at me over a shoulder. She regarded me with dark eyes that glittered with malice.

I drew in a quick breath and let it out. “Maeve?”

“Shh!” Crash put a hand to my lips. “Silence,” he whispered.

Maeve—staring coldly, her fingers still wrapped tight around the hilt of her knife—swayed where she knelt on the bed. After gazing at us for yawning minutes, she came to some sort of decision and returned to her artwork.

I glanced at Crash uncertainly.

Bringing his mouth to my ear he breathed, “Dangerous to wake a sleepwalker.”

This answered the least of my questions. Maeve? The vandal?

We waited, watching her drawing a stick figure in the burning house. In short order, Martha ducked through the flap, the Professor in her wake. A belt around his waist kept his housecoat closed.

“What’s this, then, Haus?” he asked, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand.

Crash tried to quiet him, but Maeve had heard. She whirled at the sound of his voice.

“We’ve found your vandal, Professor,” Haus said, his words quiet as he could make them. “Have a look.”

McGann followed the beam of my flashlight to the steely glow in his ward’s gaze.

“Maeve? Dammit, girl, explain yourself!” he bellowed.

Without any hint of what switch had been triggered, Maeve wrenched the knife out of the wooden wheel and hurled herself toward her caretaker, blade raised to kill. Though little more than a slip of a girl, she proved to be nimble and scrappy as any threatened critter.

She swiped at McGann. He raised his arm to ward off a nicked face, only to get a torn sleeve for his troubles. Maeve jabbed at him again, aiming for his belly. Fun as it might’ve been to watch the Professor dance for his life at the hands of a ninety-pound girl, Crash and I did our best to intercede without getting cut up ourselves. I shoved McGann out of the way and Martha edged him along the wall to more open quarters. Crash took the chance to get into Maeve’s blind spot. He pounced, wrapping his arms around hers and squeezing hard. I slid down to a knee and pinched her wrist at just the right point to make her fingers go loose. I caught the knife by the hilt before it had a chance to clatter to the floor.

Struggling to get loose, Maeve growled and snarled. You’d have thought Crash had snared a werewolf, the way she carried on.

“Maeve!” the Professor shouted. “What the bloody hell have you done?”

Crash’s voice was soothing as a lullaby in comparison to McGann’s bellowing. “Opal. Opal, wake up.”

“Opal? Have you gone mad, Haus?”

Her grunts turned into tortured sobs. Tears streamed down her face and caught the beam of my flashlight like icy gems.

Ignoring the Professor, he repeated himself. “Opal. Come on. It’s time to wake up, Opal.”

The girl we’d known as Maeve let out an anguished howl of the purest grief. When her voice was little more than a threadbare trickle at the back of her throat, she went limp, completely spent, in Crash’s arms, and the two sank to the ground.