The Bones of Ruin

by Sarah Raughley

  15

  WHAT A HAM,” MAX SAID as they stared at the trail of purple flower petals leading them down the marble hallway. Irises. How quaint. “What a large ham.”

  “Fool? Or Adam?” Iris asked, for she didn’t know which of them had arranged this.

  Fool was sure to have taken the twins to Cortez by now. Just what kind of monster was Fool? Was he a product of that fateful fair too?

  Iris wondered if he was hiding a scar behind that harlequin mask. Or maybe he was just a fan of theater. Either way, even with him gone, they had to stay on their toes. They could be walking into another trap.

  The petals led them into a library with rows of white bookshelves filled to the brim with more books than Iris could ever read in a lifetime. Their footsteps on the wooden panels echoed across the ceiling. Iris’s fingers trailed the round mahogany tables, her eyes on the flickering lamps stationed on the tall wooden chests of drawers pushed up against majestic columns.

  Upon the very last table was an open book, iris petals held between various pages.

  “Feels good to be led by the nose, doesn’t it,” Jinn said sarcastically as Iris drew the book closer to herself.

  Iris bent over to read the golden text on the green cover. “Essay on the Theory of the Earth by Georges Cuvier.”

  Iris swept a crushed petal across the introduction and found another on the one hundred and forty-sixth page.

  “Oh, we can’t be meant to read all this,” Max said, making a face once Iris sat down at the table. “Seriously?”

  It wasn’t such a big deal. After ten years of reading to Granny anything she could get her hands on, she’d become quite the proficient reader. More important: Would some truth about herself emerge from these pages?

  “Not the whole book,” Iris told them. “The flowers are bookmarks. Let’s start there.”

  Max and Jinn pulled up seats next to her and waited, Max with his head rested against his hand, Jinn quietly watching to make sure no shadows slipped between the bookcases.

  This man Cuvier referenced a few other places, histories, and narratives. Babylon, Egypt, Greece. Alexander and Moses. The Bible and Hellenistic writings. Each time, he alluded to… “events,” as he called them. By way of fire, by way of flood. Acts that made plants and animals in parts of the world extinct, which would then be followed by repopulations of fauna and flora. Extinction events. Catastrophes.

  Cataclysms. Many of them.

  Iris read enough to know these theories intrigued her, but she wasn’t sure what to make of it. Cuvier’s disdain for many of the cultures he referenced gnawed at her as she read, but Iris was drawn nonetheless to the idea of cataclysm. Especially interesting were the extensive notes she found in the book’s introduction, notes written by a man called Robert Jameson, responsible for translating Cuvier’s French work into English. Jameson’s interpretation of Cuvier’s work extended to the concept of a divine deluge that had come multiple times throughout history to wipe everything away like the biblical flood of Noah. His was a geological justification for the flood in Genesis as well as glacial events that, in his estimation, shaped and reshaped the earth.

  Extinction and rebirth. When she spoke of it to Jinn and Max, they could do nothing but sit in confusion along with her.

  “But what does this have to do with us?” asked Jinn. “Us…”

  “Fanciful Freaks?” Iris finished with a smile.

  “No.” Jinn refused with a deadpan expression. “No. Anything but that.”

  “Fanciful Freaks, eh? A friend of mine wrote some penny bloods with that title.” Max kicked his legs up onto the table. “Begged him to change that title.”

  Iris blinked, shocked. “A friend of yours?” She thought back to the author on the issues she’d found in Adam’s study. “Chadwick—”

  “Winterbottom, yeah!” Max lit up as he rested his arm around his chair. “Glad you’ve heard of him. He wrote about us: Hawkins, Jacob, Chadwick’s sister Cherice. When we were street kids, we were all part of the same crew.”

  The Fanciful Freaks… an idea ripped straight from real life. She stared at Max in awe.

  “Question remains,” he said, “if this is all about evolution, are we the evolution?”

  The mysterious explosion at South Kensington had transformed so many, probably even more than Iris knew. But how was it connected to the theory of cataclysm?

  Iris, Jinn, and Max turned their heads toward the double white doors ahead of them where the trail of petals stopped. The doors were shielded from potential visitors by a red velvet rope plus the words STAFF ONLY and UNDER CONSTRUCTION painted in black letters on each door.

  Iris stood from her chair. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  Max moved the stanchion holding the velvet rope in place. The door opened to Iris’s touch. With a hesitant glance exchanged between the three of them, they stepped inside.

  The only light within the long room came from the four paneled windows above. Moonlight streamed through them, washing over the glass cases lining the wall. The flora in them needed the light: the infant palm trees, neem, orchids, cacti, bamboo, and mangrove. The showcases in the center of the room carried artifacts: pottery and wood carvings of African heads. Or else glass jars of baobab fruit, lemongrass, and herbs and seeds.

  Adam Temple stood at the very the end of the room, tossing up his favorite coin and catching it. So this was where he’d gone after the auction. He stood with his back to them in front of a glass display of bones. After catching his silver coin for the last time, he buried it within his jacket pocket before placing his hands behind him.

  “What is this all about, Adam?” Iris demanded. Next to her she felt Jinn clench his hands into fists while Max, on the other side of her, shifted slightly away.

  It was a moment before Adam answered.

  “The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor,” he said without turning to look at them. “They believe in clairvoyance, astral projection, and scrying through the use of magic mirrors.” Iris could see his delicate face reflected in the glass display, imprinted on the human skeleton hung up on a rack between the remains of monkeys and gorillas. “On the other hand, the Order of Knight Masons believes that by communicating with celestial beings through Cabbalistic ritual, mankind would once again regain primordial unity lost with the Fall of Adam.”

  Iris stayed near the door. “And what does your order believe in?”

  Adam kept his gaze on his white-gloved hand, his palm turned upward to catch the moonlight. “The end of the world.”

  Iris’s heart shook at his words. “Cataclysm.”

  “Evolution,” Jinn added, placing his arm out in front of Iris as she stepped forward.

  “And the renewal of mankind.” Adam turned to face them now.

  “You mean that nonsense you had us read out there.” Max flicked his head toward the door. “You people actually believe it?”

  “Catastrophism is the foundation of the formation of Club Uriel, and its upper echelon: the Enlightenment Committee,” Adam said. “The continual annihilation and regeneration of populations.”

  Max’s usual hearty laugh would have bounced off the glass cases. He seemed somehow more subdued, however, in this room with the four of them as he muttered, “For how important and rational you lot think you are, you seem oddly susceptible to your own imaginations.”

  “It’s funny, isn’t it?” Adam ran his hand through his black hair, closing his eyes as he considered it. “Even Cuvier was a scientist. Doctors, authors, astrologers. How can people who believe so much in reason become so easily enraptured by what they outwardly consider to be reason’s opposite? But perhaps that’s the paradox of the modern age.”

  “Excuse me, but what does that have to do with the fact that you sent little girls to kill us?” Iris frowned. “What’s your business with us… us—”

  “Fanciful Freaks?” The crook of Adam’s mouth turned into a teasing grin. “Though that’s not the term I would use to describe you, Iris
. You’re very different than they are.”

  “Answer the question,” Jinn said as Iris’s fingers twitched. He swiftly moved in front of her, almost blocking Adam from view.

  “The Enlightenment Committee was created long ago, before Club Uriel. Indeed, the club is a front. The Committee is an exclusive order of the wealthiest and most powerful across Europe. Fourteen members once upon a time.” He smirked and looked at his right palm again. “As far as Club Uriel is concerned, catastrophism is a bewitching scientific concept despite its contradictions and inconsistencies—an intriguing alternative to other theories of evolution and, for some, an exciting hypothesis of what may one day become of us. They don’t know the truth that we Enlighteners do. We were formed on the foundation that the world would end, and after decades of painstaking research, we alone now know this to be humanity’s future beyond a shadow of a doubt.” His eyes glinted. “And we know what to do about it.”

  Something in Iris stirred, something dangerous and secret. After a moment, she felt faint, but she refused to show it.

  “The world will end. In that case,” he continued, “who would guide the regeneration of mankind? We in the Committee already use our resources to steer political and economic developments across the continent. Boris Bosch, for example—”

  “The arms dealer?” Max said, and leaned into Iris. “There was someone in the Pit who used to work in one of his factories,” he whispered. “Terrible face, that poor bloke. Half of it got burnt off in an accident. Never had the heart to fight him.”

  “The leader of Bosch Guns and Ammunitions Company has sold weapons and many new technological innovations to political leaders around the world,” said Adam. “Including my family’s contacts in Parliament.”

  “So basically,” Jinn interrupted, “since you people believe the world is ending, you want to lead whatever’s left behind, and you seem to think you have a right to.” Jinn shook his head in disgust. “You’re nothing but an egotistical doomsday cult.”

  “After everything you’ve seen, is it really so hard to believe in the end of days?” Adam calmly pushed back. “Do you really think your supernatural existence is a happy accident?”

  Jinn clenched his fists, his eyes downturned in quiet anguish. “There was nothing happy about that day.” Iris watched him, worried. What horrible memories taunted him?

  “Oh, but there was.” Adam cocked his head, amused at the expression Jinn showed. “It’s always a happy day when one’s theories are confirmed.”

  Iris gently pushed Jinn aside and stepped forward. “As far as I’m concerned, nothing’s proven,” she said.

  “And as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter what I believe. It doesn’t matter what the Committee believes. It doesn’t matter what they believe.” Adam flicked his head toward Max and Jinn. “What matters to me, Iris, is what you believe.” He stepped aside. “And what you see.”

  In front of the glass case of skeletons was a museum label, a plaque affixed to a kind of wooden podium. A summary of the contents inside, though to Iris it looked more like a tombstone. Max grabbed her wrist, shaking his head. Of course the display was horrible, but she was compelled to see. The skeleton hanging in the center of the display was of average height, with long legs and wide hips. It was female. There was something delicate about the small skull. That it was displayed next to the skeletons of apes disturbed Iris. That the skeleton was in front of her at all, defenseless against her gaze, disturbed her more.

  But when Iris reached the podium, it wasn’t the label’s description of the objects that caught her attention first. It was the picture next to it. A photo stained yellow. Three women dressed in grass skirts that barely hid their bodies in a zoo display crafted to simulate their “natural” habitat, what with the monkeys and imported palm trees. Written in cursive beneath the photo…

  GORTON ZOO HUMAN EXHIBIT

  MANCHESTER, 1832

  It was a photo of herself.

  Iris’s body went numb. There she was, carrying a staff that held her steady against the ground, her face, her body the same as they were now. Though her brown eyes were hardened, it was unmistakably her.

  Slowly, Iris turned to the description on the plaque:

  GORTON ZOO’S HUMAN EXHIBIT ENTITLED “SPECIMENS OF THE NIGER REGION.” BEGAN 23 AUGUST 1830.

  DISCONTINUED 3 AUGUST 1832.

  Heart racing, she skimmed until she saw words she recognized. Names.

  “ ‘The human specimens from Africa were the Marlow Sisters, named thusly by Thomas Jones, captain of the slave ship Marlow that brought them to England’s shores: Anne, pictured at age eleven. Iris—’ ” Her breath hitched. “ ‘Age unknown. And Agnus Marlow,’ ” she said, throat dry, “ ‘pictured at age eight.’ ”

  Marlow. Agnus Marlow. Iris checked the picture again. Looking closely, she saw Granny’s kind eyes and heart-shaped lips, this time on the face of a child.

  But there was a darker truth to reveal.

  “ ‘And on display is…’ ”

  Iris couldn’t go further. For a moment, she swore her heart stopped beating. Her fingers twitching as they traced along the plaque, she read and reread, hoping the words would make a little more sense every time her sight ran over them. She opened her trembling lips again, tears in the corners of her eyes.

  “ ‘On display,’ ” she said, her voice hoarse, “ ‘are the remains of Iris Marlow.’ ”

  “That’s impossible!” Jinn cried as he and Max ran up to her.

  She would have collapsed to the ground if Max had not kept her steady by the shoulders.

  “It’s okay,” Max whispered, but though she could feel his hot breath on her ear, she could barely hear him. Granny, more than fifty years ago. And this Anne with her butterfly barrette clasped firmly in her woolen hair. Iris was the oldest among them. It was impossible. It was unthinkable, and yet here it was in front of her. Her past. Her—

  She looked up. Her bones.

  Her bones.

  “No,” she whispered as the skeleton mocked her from behind its glass cage. “This can’t be true. Those bones aren’t mine.”

  “They are yours.” The shadows crossing Adam’s face danced almost playfully as he lowered his head, his black hair shielding him from the moonlight. “They are yours, Iris.”

  “They are not!” she cried, so loudly she felt her throat rip.

  If those men hadn’t kidnapped Sister and me, then, child, you would have.

  Granny’s words. What did they mean? She was a kidnapper? Those men—they were slavers? Granny’s sister, Anne. But how could Iris even attempt to kidnap anyone? Just how long had she been alive? Just what—

  Shaking, Iris bent down and reached into her stocking, and suddenly she was pointing Adam’s revolver at his head.

  “Iris!” Max and Jinn yelled at the same time, but Iris could only hear her own heart thumping in her ears.

  “What does it mean?” She desperately tried to hold her aim steady, but her arms felt so weak, her hands heavy.

  “Colonial exhibits, you see, are quite popular,” Adam said calmly. “Especially now, they’re flourishing across the Western world—in Europe and even the Americas. Men and women who revel in the opportunity to affirm their own civility come from all over to see displays of colonized tribes from Africa, India, the Americas, and so on. Maximo surely knows what the experience is like.”

  Max’s grimace answered to the affirmative. It held within it so much pain.

  “Don’t worry, Iris. Nobody today would link this Gorton exhibit to you, even if they happened to see you in one of your circus performances.” Adam leaned against the glass case to the right, the wide leaves of a palm tree shading him from above. “How could anyone believe that a girl of seventeen was seventeen half a century ago?”

  Iris lowered the gun. Was this the traumatic experience Granny had refused to remember? The three of them exhibited in a… a human zoo? Granny had felt familiar to Iris all those years ag
o because she’d known her back when Granny was still a child. Fifty years ago.

  Iris brought a trembling hand up to her mouth and stepped back in fear. She was wrong. She wasn’t like Jinn and Max at all. She was… different. “How long have I been alive? How can I be standing here if my bones are… if my bones are…?”

  Encased in museum glass. Prepared for viewing. They would be a learning experience for visitors. They would seem a wonder to others. But to Iris’s eyes, they were bones of ruin, worn and dented, taken from her body—a horrific reminder of just how cruel this land truly was.

  “Important questions,” said Adam. “But there’s so much more to ask. Why do you have no memories from before the explosion in South Kensington? If that explosion created the Fanciful Freaks, then why do your abilities predate that day? And the girl who fought you in the auction house: Why did she seem to know you?”

  Isoke. She Who Does Not Fall… Iris shuddered.

  “You’re not like them. The Fanciful Freaks. You were special long before that day. Who are you, Iris Marlow?” Adam asked, and she felt intensely pulled in by his hawklike gaze. “Who are you, really? No one in the Committee knows. No one in the government. But I know. And I can help you know too.”

  Iris Marlow. Perhaps it was madness setting in, but she couldn’t help but smile ruefully. So she had a last name—the name of a slave ship.

  “In exchange for what?” Jinn demanded.

  At that, Adam grinned. “I’ve already told Iris this was a mutual arrangement. She performs two tasks for me, and I will help her unravel the mystery of her own life. In fact, I daresay she’ll never truly understand who she is unless she completes those tasks.”

  Iris felt like her soul had left her body. If she even had a soul. “I know the first,” she said, sounding as empty as she felt. Find his father, John Temple. Another key to her identity. “What’s the second?”

  “Oh, that?” Adam tugged his right glove. “I want you to be my champion.” He looked at her. “I want you to fight for me, under my banner, in the Tournament of Freaks. The Tournament crafted by the Enlightenment Committee. That’s all, really.”