Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet

by H. P. Wood

  While pacing the floor, she almost collides with a knight in shining armor leaning against a display cabinet, lazily guarding its contents. But his armor is not so much shining as it is tarnished and dented. His breastplate and chain mail look to be roughly fourteenth century in origin, but Kitty knows perfectly well that his flat-top helmet is of a style at least two hundred years older, and his sword is a Japanese katana for certain.

  “Some museum this is,” she mutters. “They certainly don’t let historical accuracy get in the way.”

  Among the gewgaws in the knight’s cabinet is a dusty old lobster carcass with a squirrel’s head glued onto the front. She frowns at the squobster in dismay. “My question,” she says aloud, “is simply why? Why ever would someone…” She sighs. “Never mind.”

  Beside the squobster is a dried-out snake skin, coiled on a small velvet pillow. The label reads:

  SKIN SHED FROM THE VERY SAME ASP THAT KILLED POOR OLD CLEOPATRA BACK IN 30 BC!

  “ALL STRANGE AND TERRIBLE EVENTS ARE WELCOME, BUT COMFORTS WE DESPISE.”

  —SHAKESPEARE, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

  Kitty rolls her eyes. “Oh yes, the very same asp, I’ve no doubt!”

  Somewhere in the museum, a cuckoo clock bongs three, easily five hours off the correct time. And Kitty has had just about enough.

  “This is ridiculous!” She rounds on the defenseless knight. “Just look at you! Foolish old thing. You are ridiculous, and this place is ridiculous. It’s absolutely filthy, absolutely everywhere, and everything is fake. The squobster’s a fake, and you’re a fake, the tenement fires are fakes, even the bloody…what was it…Rinpoches are fakes, and I’ve no idea why I’m even here!” Tears prick her eyes.

  The silence answers her question. Where else could she go?

  She turns away from the knight and rubs her eyes with her fists, forcing the tears back in. Then, in the distance, a chipper, mechanical sort of sound.

  Ding!

  Kitty looks around. Every blasted clock at Magruder’s is set to a different time, so perhaps one of them just—

  Ding!

  But it doesn’t sound like any cuckoo clock she’s ever heard.

  Ding!

  A timer. Must be some sort of timer. She sighs again. Best see to it—what if a kettle’s been left on or some such? Typical, she imagines Nate teasing. Our Kitty finds herself a refuge at last, and she lets it burn to the ground.

  Ding! Ding!

  “My, you’re insistent, aren’t you?” Kitty follows the sound through the maze of cabinets. Ding! Ding! Ding! “Yes, I’m coming! Honestly!”

  In a musty back room, wooden shelves are packed with more “treasures” of Theophilus P. Magruder. An old bed frame lies in pieces on the floor. And then, against the far wall, a brightly lit cabinet topped with a sign: Robonocchio, the Automatic Boy!

  Kitty approaches, peering at the clockwork boy with a porcelain mask for a face. A gentle smile plays across his lips, but his green, painted-on eyes look sad. She looks all around the cabinet, trying to sort out what exactly is causing the chipper little alarm.

  Ding!

  “All right!” Kitty says, frustrated. “I’m here! What do you want?” She rubs her temples, embarrassed. “Look at me. I’ll be talking to the icebox next.”

  Ding! Ding! Ding!

  “I don’t see—oh.” At the bottom of the cabinet, a piece of paper sits in a slot. Kitty removes the paper, and her eyes widen. It’s a picture of a young woman with a long, messy braid. She sits on a bench with her back to the viewer, looking out at the sea.

  “But that’s…” She looks up at the machine’s shiny white face. “How could you… That’s exactly how I…”

  Oh. Ohhh. Kitty recovers herself and chuckles. “Clever! Clever. Everyone who visits a beach town gazes at the ocean eventually. As it happens, I recently visited a breathtakingly terrible art gallery, and they had pictures just like this covering every surface. Any portrait-drawing automaton worth its salt has got to have ‘Girl Stares at Sea’ in its repertoire.” She raps the cabinet appreciatively. “Well done! Truly. Mr. Zeph must have set this up to entertain me while he was gone. I suppose he—”

  Inside the cabinet, the clockwork starts to move.

  The metal hand holding the pen rises slightly, swings right, and dips into a bottle of ink. The arm swings back, and the machine begins to draw.

  “Another one, eh?” She shrugs. “All right. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  The automaton’s head looks up, staring sightlessly into the darkness of the storeroom, then back down at the paper. Up, then back down. Pen to ink, pen to paper, pen to ink, pen to paper. This goes on for a long time.

  Kitty paces silently as the machine works. Silly old parlor trick, really. Wasn’t there some Ancient Greek chap who made a mechanical dove fly about? Or was it an owl? Any case, if they could do it that long ago, then surely…

  Ding! At last, the picture is finished. The “writing desk” tilts forward, and the paper slides down inside the machine and out the slot.

  This new picture has the same setting as the first: seaside, bench, girl gazing out. But this time, a nattily dressed older gentleman stands beside her, also looking at the sea. A dark-skinned young man sits beside the girl on the bench, his long, black ropes of hair tumbling down his back. And on the other side of the bench is a barrel-chested chap with no interest in the view at all. He only has eyes for the person beside him, who is dressed in a most extraordinary way—half as a woman and half as a man.

  Kitty stares at the image, then at the automaton. She opens her mouth, then closes it. On the street outside, a brass band marches past the Cabinet. “Down by the Riverside” creeps into the storeroom, fills the space, and then sneaks away as quickly as it arrived. As the music fades, Kitty suddenly realizes she’s forgotten to breathe.

  She reaches out to Robonocchio’s cabinet and strokes it with her fingertips. Standing there, she hears Magruder’s big front door creak open. She carefully folds both drawings and tucks them in the waistband of her skirt. “I should go,” she says quietly. “My detectives have returned. But…” She takes a step forward and comes nose to nose with the automaton, their faces separated only by glass.

  “Thank you. I don’t know what you are, but you’re very kind.”

  • • •

  Out in the main part of the museum, Kitty finds it’s not her detectives returned at all. It’s a barefooted boy with a mop of black hair. “Hello there,” she says. “Do you work here? Zeph said it was all right if I stayed and waited for him. I hope you don’t mind?”

  He stares at her.

  “I’m Kitty. I’m…I’m a friend of Zeph’s. And Rosalind’s. What’s your name?”

  The boy walks to a table with a toy circus on it, opens the drawer underneath, and removes what appears to be a pickle jar. He turns to Kitty and stares at her some more.

  “What is it?”

  From his trouser pocket, he removes a pair of tweezers. He places the jar on the table and opens it, captures a flea with the tweezers, and shuts the jar. He picks up a very thin thread, one end tied in a tiny noose. With the ease that most boys put leashes on their dogs, this boy deftly slides the thread around the flea. From inside the circus tent, he removes a two-wheeled carriage not much bigger than a thumbnail. It has a tiny blue flag attached to the back. He puts the carriage on the table and ties the flea to the front. Then he repeats the process with a new flea and a new tiny carriage, this time with a red flag.

  “Chariot races! Outstanding!” Kitty grins. “I’ll put a penny on red, if you please.”

  • • •

  Rosalind, Zeph, and Archie return to Magruder’s, arguing the entire way about whether they were justified in sneaking out of the hotel without paying. “We didn’t stay the night,” Archie says. “Why should we pay?”

  “Tacky,” R
osalind mutters.

  “Feh.”

  “Y’all can stop acting like a married couple now,” Zeph says. “You’re giving me a headache.”

  “Kitty, darling,” Rosalind calls to the darkened museum. “We’re home.”

  Rosalind, Archie, and Zeph round the corner to find Kitty engrossed in a fairly ahistorical reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run.

  Zeph ambles over to the circus table on his hands. “Hey, P-Ray, you keeping Miss Kitty company?”

  The boy nods without taking his eyes off the battling fleas.

  “Hmm,” Zeph says. “Things look bad for the Union.”

  “P-Ray?” Kitty asks. “Is that his name? He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Don’t know if it is or ain’t,” Zeph says. “That’s just the only word we ever get out of him.”

  “So, did you find anything at the hotel?”

  Zeph exchanges glances with the others.

  Rosalind says, “P-Ray, you should be in bed, darling. The South will rise again some other day.”

  P-Ray sighs and gathers up his pets.

  “Should I even ask what happened?”

  Zeph shrugs. “We either found out a lot or not much, depending.”

  “Lovely,” Kitty says glumly.

  Rosalind rests a gentle hand on Kitty’s shoulder. “I wish we could say we learned where your mother was taken, but we didn’t. We did find one small thing. I’m not sure whether it will mean anything to you.” From his clutch, Rosalind removes the necklace.

  Kitty’s eyes go wide. “That’s hers! Mother was wearing that when we arrived! Oh, Rosalind…” Kitty takes the necklace with both hands. Her eyes well up. “It’s… She…” She looks at Rosalind helplessly.

  “My sweet girl…”

  “I’m sorry I’m crying. I don’t know why this necklace would… I knew you wouldn’t find her, but somehow… Oh, this stupid old necklace…”

  Rosalind puts his arms around Kitty, who sobs into his neck.

  “Look, Miss Hayward,” Archie interjects. “If you could pull yourself together, we need to ask you some questions about your mother’s illness.”

  “Don’t scare her with your Yellow Jack claptrap. We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” Rosalind says.

  “Rosalind, it’s important that we—”

  “Not now, Archie.”

  “But—”

  “Not now!” Rosalind drops his voice a bit lower, reminding Archie that a vigorous twenty-nine-year-old male lurks underneath the corset. “Don’t make me say it again, old man.”

  Archie shrugs. “As you wish, your ladyship. By all means, wait until breakfast. Leave it till teatime, what do I care? It’s just a plague, after all.”

  Rosalind strokes Kitty’s hair. “Don’t you worry about him—he’s terrible. You go ahead and cry if you need to.”

  She does.

  Chapter 15

  Exactly Like This

  When Kitty wakes the next morning, Rosalind has already left for work, wherever that might be—Kitty isn’t sure. But before departing, he’d thoughtfully laid out a clean outfit: an aubergine-colored walking skirt and matching shirtwaist that almost fits. Kitty dresses, fixes up her hair as best she can, and puts on her mother’s necklace. She glances at herself in Rosalind’s big mirror and sighs. Mum wore it better. She heads downstairs.

  Kitty finds Zeph perched on his stool at the front entrance of Magruder’s, so engrossed in his book, she hesitates to interrupt him. “Good morning,” she says. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  “Oh! Hello, Miss Hayward. How are you keeping this morning?”

  “I’m…I’m fine. Thank you for allowing me to stay here.”

  “Aw, you’re no trouble. You fit in better here than most Normals would.”

  She blushes at the compliment. “What are you reading, if you don’t mind?”

  He shrugs. “Aw, nothing you’d know. It’s just—” He holds up the Du Bois.

  “I see. ‘I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not.’”

  Zeph boggles. “Has everybody in the damn world read this book ’cept me?”

  “I doubt that very much,” Kitty says with a laugh. “But Mum was always one for causes. Suffrage, of course, and settlement houses, and Negro rights. She took me to hear Du Bois speak at the Pan-African Congress in London a few years ago. I was only about twelve, I think? Thirteen? Hadn’t a clue what he was on about at the time, but he was a fine speaker.”

  Zeph whistles. “That’s quite a life you got, Miss Hayward.”

  “Well, that was Mum’s doing—we must make ourselves useful, she’d say. She saw the world the way a housekeeper sees a dirty kitchen, do you know what I mean? Look at the state of this place! Not much time for, you know, playing and whatnot. We must make ourselves useful!” Kitty smiles sadly. “Mum could be rather annoying.”

  “Now, don’t be so quick with the past tense. We found her necklace, didn’t we? Don’t give up hope yet.”

  Kitty runs her fingers along the chain. “Did you find anything else?”

  “Nothing specific. Oh, but Ros and Archie did see that Seamus you told us about. Looking all shifty. That boy knows something, that’s for certain.”

  “Right, but how do we—”

  The front door creaks open, and Spencer’s head appears. “Hello?”

  Zeph rolls his eyes. “Look who’s back. Hope you brought exact change this time.”

  Spencer nods. “That I did.” He pulls the door open farther, and both he and Nazan enter.

  “Well, hello there!” Zeph brightens considerably, and Kitty arches an eyebrow at his sudden change in tone. “I mean…good morning, Miss Nazan.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Zeph,” Nazan says with a smile. She sees Kitty. “Hello.”

  “Hello there. I’m Kitty Hayward.”

  “Yeah, uh, this is Kitty. Kitty, this is Nazan Celik, and this fellow is some cheapskate she runs around with.”

  Spencer rolls his eyes and tips his hat. “Name’s Spencer Reynolds, Miss Hayward. A pleasure. Are you touring the Cabinet today?”

  “Ah, not exactly. I’m sort of—”

  “She’s one of us, Reynolds. Don’t you fret on it.” He turns to Nazan. “So, Miss Celik, you’re back for more?”

  Nazan smiles. “I was hoping I could see the Automatic Boy again.”

  Kitty gasps and takes Nazan’s hand. “Isn’t he just extraordinary? The most remarkable thing happened last—”

  “Right,” Spencer interrupts. “All the ladies are smitten with your magical punch-card machine, whereas I want to speak with you about that cart of yours. Is the doctor you mentioned in this morning? Perhaps I could—”

  “Doc don’t talk to nobody. You want a cart, go buy yourself your own inventor.”

  “This is important.”

  Zeph shrugs. “Not to me it ain’t.”

  “Please. It’s…it’s for my brother.”

  Nazan now turns to Spencer, confused. “You have a brother?”

  He nods. “I have a brother. You aren’t meant to know I have a brother. No one, actually, is meant to know.”

  Zeph and Kitty exchange looks. She says, “You have a secret brother, Mr. Reynolds?”

  “Yes, I—”

  Zeph leans forward with an intensely serious expression. “Now, sir, lemme ask you. Can other folks see your secret brother? Or is this one of those very special sort of brothers, just for you?”

  Kitty covers her mouth with her hand to stifle her laugh.

  “Ha-ha, yes, very funny. You’ll be ashamed of your joke when I tell you that I do, indeed, have a brother, named Charlie. He contracted polio five years ago and lost the use of his legs. My father was in a tough campaign at the time, so he informed the newspapers that Charlie died so he could collect the sympathy rather than bear the shame of an in
capacitated son. Proud of yourself?”

  “Well…” Zeph scratches his chin. “I ain’t proud of your daddy, that’s for sure.”

  “Spencer, that’s terrible!” Nazan says.

  “The problem now is the only person in my family more stubborn than my father is Charlie. And Charlie’s pride won’t permit him to be pushed around in a wheelchair, which means he’s barely left his bedroom this century. But I saw your self-powered cart, and I just thought—”

  The door flies open, and Archie hustles in, all business. “Zeph, we need to talk about the—Good Lord, it’s like Grand Central in here!” He looks around. “Two whole customers? Why that’s more than the Cabinet’s seen in—wait a minute.” He peers at Spencer. “You’re that Reynolds boy, aren’t you?”

  “I am he,” Spencer says stiffly. “May I help you?”

  Archie laughs. “Not likely! But you might help her.” He points at Kitty. “Doesn’t anyone know who this is?”

  Zeph shrugs. “White boys all look alike to me.”

  “This is none other than the son of Senator William Reynolds!”

  Zeph stares at Archie blankly.

  “William Reynolds, who built Dreamland! Owns the whole damn park! We have the very dauphin of Coney Island in our midst.” Archie glares at him. “So since you’ve deigned to bless us with your royal presence, why don’t you tell us what the devil is going on in this town?”

  “Sir, I have no idea what you—”

  “Don’t try that with me, son. All the dead camels? Exotic fumigations? Well-bred British ladies disappearing from hotels?”

  Spencer looks away. “Ah, sir, it’s true my family owns the one park, but I certainly don’t have anything to do with hotels or—”

  “Oh please!” Archie scoffs. “Nothing happens in this town without the Reynolds family hearing about it!”

  “Spencer?” Nazan says carefully. “Is something wrong?”

  “Mr. Reynolds, sir,” Kitty says, her voice trembling ever so slightly. “A few days ago, my mother went missing from the Manhattan Beach Hotel. If there is any chance you might know something, I must beg of you—”