Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet

by H. P. Wood

  • • •

  Out on the street, Rosalind quickly regrets having made such bold claims about all the things he’d accomplish. He’d known things were bad, but he didn’t expect Surf Avenue to be quite this desolate. Seagulls swoop overhead, cawing in annoyance—no abandoned hot dogs or dropped ice cream cones to snatch. A crumpled food wrapper dances down the street, caught in a breeze. Carriages dangle lifelessly from the Ferris wheel at Steeplechase Park. Coney Island is reduced to a box of broken toys.

  A cat in heat howls painfully from an alley. “Sorry, kitty,” Rosalind says. “The whole town is lonesome today.”

  Finally, Rosalind discovers a small group of men loitering around the Rough Riders coaster with their hands in their pockets. One of them is familiar. “Digby,” he shouts. “So very glad to see you!”

  The strongman grins, opening his arms to embrace Rosalind.

  “How are you holding up, Digby? I haven’t seen you since Bernard’s funeral.”

  Digby shrugs sadly. “I miss my friend.”

  “I know, love,” Rosalind says. “We all do.”

  Digby introduces Rosalind to the other men—an electrician from Dreamland, a waiter from Feltman’s, a bartender from the Oriental, and a carousel repairman on loan from the World’s Fair. “How are you lads?”

  The repairman shrugs. “We ain’t sick, so that’s something. But there’s no work.”

  “As it happens, there’s work over at Magruder’s. Timur the inventor has a machine that needs building. He could use all of you, I’m certain.”

  “Any pay?” asks the waiter.

  “Ah, I’m not sure…but if the machine works as designed, you’ll drink free at the tavern for the rest of your days.”

  The men eyeball one another, hesitant.

  Rosalind bats his eyelashes. “Tell me true, boys…did you get any better offers today?”

  Digby agrees. “I’m in. Got a new job, but I don’t much like it.”

  “Really?” Rosalind asks. “You’ve found a job already? What is it?”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  “I do! I’m very curious about employment opportunities on post-quarantine Coney.”

  “Well,” Digby says, “I’m what’s called a body breaker. Basically, I—”

  Rosalind raises his hand. “On second thought…”

  Digby nods. “Like I said. Pay or no pay, anything’s better than that.”

  Rosalind sends them off to Magruder’s. Then he walks down a side street toward the doctor’s office. Turning the corner, he gasps. The doctor’s building is completely destroyed—nothing left but the charred frame and piles of burned, broken furniture. A bitter smell hovers over the smoldering remains—objects were melted that shouldn’t be made to melt. The buildings on either side are also charred, but at least they’re standing.

  A woman sits on the stoop, weeping. Rosalind approaches. “My dear, what happened?” But the woman shrugs off Rosalind’s comforts.

  On the ground is a dark, sticky puddle. Leading away from the puddle, a long smear points in the direction of the alley.

  Don’t, warns a voice in Rosalind’s head. Don’t follow it.

  But he does.

  At the back of the alley, in a heap, is a body. Spencer. A pair of seagulls sit on his chest, pecking away at his face. He’s no ice cream cone, but he’ll do.

  Rosalind chases the gulls away in a rage. “Go away, you winged rats, go away! Poor prince,” he says, his eyes filling up. “Oh, you poor prince…”

  He tries to wipe the blood from Spencer’s handsome face, clean off those cheekbones. But the skull is too broken, too far gone to restore.

  Rosalind looks around helplessly. “I can’t… I don’t… What do I…” He covers his mouth with both hands as the tears come.

  • • •

  Zeph takes a break from the frenzy of construction on the roof and goes down to the museum. He feels for the first time in weeks like the world is finally coming back into focus, and he sings to himself. “My little Coney Isle, dear little Coney Isle…”

  He opens the drawer under P-Ray’s flea circus and takes out the pickle jar, home to the boy’s few surviving pets. He carefully unscrews the lid and flips the jar over, covering the opening with the palm of his hand. “Folks say the Bowery—eww, how does he do this every day?—is not very flowery, but that is the place for me… Wow, y’all hungry today, huh? Well, don’t you worry yourselves, ’cause we gonna get your boss man back for you any time now. You should see what the Doc’s got going on up on the roof—your tiny flea brains wouldn’t never believe it. And apparently Doc thinks I’m gonna steer the damn thing, which…” He laughs, frightened by the idea and delighted by it equally. “We shall see, little fleas. We shall see.”

  Rosalind steps around the black curtain. He stands there, stricken, his beautifully painted face now a soggy, raccoon-like mess.

  “Hey, it’s our hero! Thank the Lord you thought of sending Digby and his boys down here, Ros. Timur’s contraption is coming together so quick! Digby, he tosses around these big ol’ boards like they’re toothpicks. Gonna be finished any minute.” Zeph shakes the fleas off his hand. “Okay, that’s my donation for the day. Don’t get greedy, now. So, where’s Reynolds?”

  Rosalind opens his mouth. Closes his mouth. Shakes his head.

  “Couldn’t find him, huh? Well, goddamn. Where’d that boy get himself to? Wait, I know! Did you look over at the—”

  “I did find him.” Rosalind hugs himself, looks at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at Zeph. “I did find him.”

  “Fantastic! Did you tell him Nazan is working on some—”

  “Zeph.” Rosalind stares at him.

  “Ros?” Zeph stares back.

  Silence.

  “Now, Ros, what are you even…”

  Rosalind drifts over to one of the cabinets. He leans on it, resting his head against the cool glass front.

  “Come on, don’t… You don’t mean… Jesus, no.” Zeph climbs up the rungs alongside the cabinet so he’s face-to-face with Rosalind. “What happened?”

  “I went to the doctor’s office. It’s gone.”

  “What do you—”

  “Burned down, blown up, I don’t know! There’s nothing left. Piles of ash, still smoking. I keep smelling it—even now, I still smell it.”

  Zeph reaches over and strokes Rosalind’s face. “Oh, darlin’… I bet he wasn’t in there. He’s a smart boy; he coulda gotten out. Maybe he’s—”

  “He never got in! I found him on the street; he wasn’t burned. He never got in before they…” He chokes off a sob. “Sorry, I’m trying not to…” He takes a few deep breaths.

  “But that don’t make sense. Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know! He’s dead, that’s all.”

  Zeph feels his grip on the rungs start to loosen. He eases himself down and sits on the floor. “Jesus.”

  Rosalind dabs his eyes with a handkerchief. “Someone has to go get him. I couldn’t carry him alone, so I had to leave him there. Maybe Digby can do it. But we—”

  “But why, though? Why attack the doctor?”

  “Who knows?” Rosalind says. He sniffles and wipes his nose. “Who knows why any of us does anything? Unusuals make anarchists look organized.”

  Zeph rubs his eyes, picturing the scene. “Reynolds must have got in their way somehow. Tried to stop ’em.”

  “Maybe. Hardly matters why, anyway.”

  “Uh, Ros? It’s gonna matter a lot to Miss Nazan.”

  “Oh no. Miss Nazan. I hadn’t even… That poor little thing.”

  “I’ll do it,” Zeph says. “Don’t worry—it’s bad enough you had to be the one to find him. I’ll do this next part.”

  Rosalind straightens his spine, wipes his nose. “We’ll tell her together.”r />
  Chapter 43

  The Dragon

  P-Ray isn’t better. Kitty tries to focus on the fact that he isn’t worse. As she contemplates the fine line between not better and much worse, an odd humming noise drifts into the cabin. Not an ocean sound—not a natural sound at all. Mechanical? But what? She squeezes P-Ray’s hand one more time and steps outside to find the source of the humming.

  A strange beast hangs in the sky over New York Bay like a toy that God forgot to put away.

  Back in England, Nate had often bent Kitty’s ear about the wonders of heavier-than-air flight, boring her with the adventures of American madman Gustave Whitehead, who flew a glider into a three-story building, or the martyr Percy Pilcher—the British Icarus, Nate said—who died in a glider crash just days before his invention’s public debut. But this beast over the Bay…this is something else. To Kitty, it looks like an overgrown dragonfly, its double wings carrying a tiny body straight at them. This beast is no mere glider; it has power and will. It means business, and its determined drone fills the air.

  “Signorina!” Enzo comes running down from the main building, pointing at the sky. “Our taxi is here.”

  Kitty joins him at the fence. “What makes you think that thing is coming for us?”

  He turns to her, the tiniest smile playing on his face. “A machine of wood and metal has taken to the air. Who you think build it?”

  The beast is closer now. She can hear the propellers, like giant moths caught in a fan. Their guard hears it too; he ogles the sky for a moment and then abruptly turns and runs toward the main building, yelling, “Hey, you gotta c’mere and see this!”

  “What is that pattern?” Kitty asks. The wings and body of the contraption are covered with ornate designs in blue, white, and gold. “Do you recognize it?”

  Enzo squints, then snorts with laughter. “Homer’s Carousel! Instead of horses, she had cyclops and sea monsters and cannibal giants. Steeplechase get rid of her because the children are too afraid to ride. I always wonder what become of the pieces, but, of course, Timur have them. Who else?”

  Kitty gazes up at the flying machine, beautiful in its own strange way, with two sets of enormous wings, one atop the other, connected by gold struts. It’s fitting that the glider was built from the bones of monsters, as it looks like one—a gas-powered dragon about to swoop down on them. But the flying machine is belching oily, black smoke. “My goodness! Do you see that?”

  “Sì. She going down.”

  The dragon looks a little drunk, listing left and right and drawing a woozy smoke trail in the air.

  “What shall we do? Should we…”

  The drone of the engine turns to a splutter, an ellipsis of sound. Then it stalls entirely. The flying monster drops from the sky like a nickel in a slot machine, splashing into the surf and skidding across the water before flopping down, exhausted.

  Enzo gazes at Kitty regretfully through the fence. “You get him, lady swimmer?”

  “Get whom?”

  “What, you think il Dottore fly his own glider? No, he give to someone else the dirty work. You swim, sì?”

  “Yes, but I don’t—”

  A panicked shout emerges from the wreck. “Goddamn it, y’all!”

  Kitty gasps. “Zeph!”

  “Sì, and he no swim so good.”

  Kitty jogs toward the jagged pieces of shale. At the top of her stairway to the sea, she pauses. Then she shrugs and sits down to unlace her shoes.

  As the belly of the glider starts to sink beneath the waves, the pilot lifts himself up. He climbs atop the highest wing and balances there, dark-skinned and damp.

  Kitty yells, “Mr. Zeph! Are you all right?”

  Zeph shoves some wet locks of hair out of his face and grins at them. He stretches out his arms like a conqueror. “Lady and gentleman! Fear not! I’ve come to rescue—whoa!” A wave hits the side of the glider and sends Zeph skidding across the wing. He pulls himself back up, laughing a giddy survivor’s laugh. “It ain’t gone exactly according to plan!”

  “Do hang on. I’m on my way out to you!” She tugs off her skirt and tosses it aside.

  Enzo runs down to the water’s edge on his side of the fence; from the water, he gazes at his old friend perched atop a miracle. “Hey, stupido! You hang on!”

  “Nice to see you too, Enzo!”

  Clad in her sleeveless chemise top and knee-length drawers, Kitty races partway down the stairs and dives into the bay. The cold water takes her breath away, but she swims efficiently to the side of the glider. Zeph climbs down and eases himself in, howling at the temperature. Kitty turns her back to him, and he wraps his arms around her shoulders and holds on. The two of them half swim, half drown their way back to the staircase.

  Still in the water, Zeph gingerly lets go of Kitty and grabs hold of the staircase railing. Kitty climbs up with him following behind.

  “Thank you kindly, Miss Kitty!” They both collapse on the grass, panting and laughing. “That’s for sure the most scandalous thing you ever gonna do, right?”

  Kitty reaches over and pulls a piece of seaweed from Zeph’s damp locks. “Oh, I hope not!” She looks out at the wreckage, bobbing in the current. “I don’t understand what I just saw. My brother was fascinated by aeronautics, but those were gliders. But this…this is not a glider, is it?”

  Grinning widely, Zeph pulls himself upright. “Nope, it ain’t.”

  “That’s an actual flying machine.”

  “Yup, it is.”

  “But that’s impossible. Magruder’s is miles away. It’s…it’s impossible is all.”

  “It’s Timur. What’d Mr. Lewis Carroll say? Six impossible things before breakfast? Hate to brag, but I reckon Doc could beat that if he set his mind to it.” Enzo waves at them delightedly from the far side of the fence, and Zeph waves back. “Signore! Hey, why is Enzo on one side of the fence and you on the other?”

  “We’re in quarantine.”

  “Oh no! You ain’t sick, I hope?”

  “P-Ray.”

  “Dammit! How is he?”

  She sighs, wringing out her braid. “Feverish, sleepy, with the lumps on his neck. He cries when he wakes; it seems like everything hurts. I’ve begged for a doctor, but no one comes.”

  “No! Oh no, no, no… Oh, my poor little man. He in that shack there? I’m going to go see him, okay?” She nods. “But wait, I got news for you first. We found your mother.”

  “I… You… What?” Kitty shakes her head; she must have seawater in her ears. “You mean her body. You found her body?”

  “Yeah, we found her body, but she’s still using it! She’s alive, English! About the same as P-Ray, sounds like—sleeping mostly, but breathing.”

  Kitty herself can barely breathe. “Zeph…”

  “What’d I tell ya?” He pats her on the shoulder. “That’s two impossible things, and I ain’t been here five minutes.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Don’t, ’cause it was mainly Miss Nazan’s doing.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep. She’s even working on some kind of cure up in Timur’s lab. Turns out we got another mad scientist on our hands.”

  “But how did you even manage to—”

  “Zeph!” Enzo bellows an interruption before Kitty can get her question out. “Why you approach from the west? Coney, she east of here.”

  Zeph laughs and gives Kitty a little “be right back” gesture as he moves toward the fence. “Yeah? Let’s see you steer that bastard. Timur said it would be easy, but I missed the whole island on the first pass! You shoulda seen me. I had to”—he gestures in a circle—“kinda ease myself around and—”

  Enzo interrupts again. “What sort of engine is this?”

  “How should I know? Timur bought it off some fisherman. Fella said what with t
he quarantine, he wasn’t doing no more fishing anyway, so…I told Doc it was too heavy, but you know how the old man can—”

  “Boat engine! I knew it. I want this boat engine.”

  “Nah. See that smoke? Engine’s a goner. I think a seagull flew in it. I heard a hell of a squawking, and then—”

  “Is no matter. I fix. But how is engine connected? What, bolts? Bolts, sì?”

  “I s’pose? Rosalind was on wrench detail.”

  Enzo stops short. “Oh, cara mia…” He lets out a half sigh before noticing Zeph’s raised eyebrow. “How is? Okay?”

  “Well, he’s a wreck worrying about y’all, but—”

  Enzo nods. “He feel better soon. You stay here. Signorina!” Enzo gestures that Kitty should approach the fence, and she hurries over. “Signorina,” Enzo whispers urgently, “that is boat engine.”

  “That’s… Oh! That’s interesting.”

  Enzo nods. “In the morning, be ready. Five a.m. is window.”

  Kitty shakes her head in confusion. “Window?”

  “No guards. Window between night shift and day. I come in boat, remove engine, and we are off.”

  “But what about P-Ray? And Zeph now too? If they don’t want P-Ray, they certainly won’t let us bring—”

  He shrugs. “Engine problem, I fix. That problem, you fix.”

  “How on earth do I—”

  But Enzo is already jogging away. He passes two guards, who are thoroughly distracted by an argument about the glider.

  “I’m telling ya, it was up in the air!” says the guard who saw it.

  “It’s just a boat wreck. They wash up all the time,” scoffs the other, who did not. “You’re losing your marbles.”

  “Miss Kitty,” Zeph asks, “what’s Enzo talking about?”

  “Come, let’s go inside—I’ll explain while you visit with P-Ray. I want to hear about my mother. I want to hear everything. Then you and I have a magic trick to sort out.”