The Cabinet of Wonders

by Marie Rutkoski

  “If the prince can wear your eyes, can he make things move without touching them? Can he build what you can build?”

  When her father responded, his words were sharp. His voice held something that Petra recognized, but couldn’t quite identify, for she had never heard him use it before. “He stole my eyes, Petra, not my mind.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment, and the silence was awkward. Her father then said, more quietly, “Would you mind if I slept awhile?” He stroked her hand. “It’s good to be home.”

  She kissed his forehead. “I’ll come to see you later.”

  As she opened the door to leave, Petra suddenly realized what she had heard in his voice. She had often heard it in Josef’s. It was bitterness.

  3

  Lightning and Wasp

  PETRA LOCKED THE SHOP behind her and strode down the street. She had an idea.

  When she neared the center of Okno, the soft clapping of her footsteps echoed against stone walls. The street stretched before her in a straight, clean line. She passed the bakery, which was entering into its third round that day of preparing fresh bread. Petra glanced into an open window and saw strong arms thudding dough against a wooden table.

  That everything was so normal seemed strange to Petra.

  She reached the main road, where most of the artisan shops were arranged in a neat row. Wooden signs hung above the doors, each showing a different painting so that people who could not read would recognize the shop they wanted.

  Mistress Jugo gave her a sour look and stepped back inside her toy shop, which was marked by a wooden board showing a spinning top. Although Petra’s father had done his best to explain that his tin pets were made in limited numbers, and were just a sideline project in his metalworking trade, Mistress Jugo hadn’t spoken to the family in years. She took Master Kronos’s invention to be the beginning of a slowly unfolding plot to take over the town’s entire toy production. Not to mention that Master Kronos’s pets were a shocking display of his magical ability, which any self-respecting person (in Mistress Jugo’s opinion) would decently keep to himself.

  Petra marched steadily to the Sign of Fire, a shop that sold glassware. This store had large, glittering windows made from glass cut into many diamond-shaped panes and fitted together with crisscrossing lines of lead. A few colored bits of glass winked at Petra. A window over the door glowed with the name STAKAN in red letters. This was where her friend Tomik lived with his family.

  Petra stepped into the shop, which was empty aside from a tin cat curled up near the doorway. He lazily opened one green eye and then closed it.

  “Jaspar, I need to see Tomik. And Master Stakan. It’s important.”

  The cat kept his eyes shut and purred. Or snored. It was hard to tell the difference.

  Outraged, Astrophil raced down Petra’s arm, but she cupped her hand over him and ignored the sharp jabs his legs made against her palm. The spider disapproved of Jaspar in general, and disliked the cat’s bad manners in particular. “You’ll only make things worse,” Petra hissed.

  “Who will make things worse?” Jaspar opened one eye again.

  “Astrophil.”

  “Who?”

  “Astrophil.”

  “Who?”

  “Me!” The spider squeaked inside Petra’s hand.

  “Oh.” The cat snuggled his head under a paw. “He’s not important.”

  “But what I have to tell Tomik and his father is.” She tried calling for them. “Tomik! Master Stakan!” The house echoed emptily.

  “They’re not here,” Jaspar said. “But why don’t you keep shouting, if you like the exercise?”

  “Why don’t you try to be worth the oil you drink!” Astrophil cried.

  Jaspar yawned and his teeth glinted like jewels. “Speaking of oil … you wouldn’t happen to have any, would you? I know where you can find Tomas and Tomik, but, sadly, my throat’s a little too parched to tell you.”

  Petra sighed. “All right. Tell me where they keep the brassica.”

  The cat’s silver needle whiskers were alert. “Try the wooden jug on the top shelf over there.”

  She fetched the jug and poured oil into Jaspar’s dish. “Now will you help?”

  Jaspar lapped up the oil and gave a metallic meow: “More.”

  “Where are they?”

  Tomik and his father walked through the door.

  “They’re in the shop,” Jaspar said.

  “Thanks a lot.” She put the jug back on its shelf.

  “Aren’t you an ungrateful girl.” Jaspar curled up and went back to sleep.

  Tomik was a year older than Petra. His sandy hair hung in his eyes. He pushed it back from his sweaty forehead. He looked at her uncertainly. Even before Master Stakan spoke, she knew that they knew.

  “Is it true, Petra?” Tomas Stakan asked. “David’s been to town and he’s telling a strange story about your father. Is it true?” Master Stakan was as serious as stone as he listened to Petra explain what had happened.

  “It’s too much!” His fist slammed against the worktable. Bottles tinkled and one jumped over the edge of the table, smashing on the floor below. “Too much! One day the prince will regret the way he has treated his people! Even when he was a little boy he would send people to the gallows as easily as he would wipe his nose! One day he will—”

  His thundering stopped almost as soon as it had begun. He glanced behind him nervously, as if someone might be watching him or hearing his rebellious words. He exhaled one long breath, and seemed to regain his calm.

  “Maybe there’s a way you can help my father,” Petra said, and described the idea she had in mind. As she spoke, Master Stakan nodded occasionally.

  When she finished, Tomik began to say, “I think that—”

  His father held up a flat hand.

  “I’ll start working on it,” Master Stakan said. “But it will take some time, and probably a lot of trial and error. What you’re asking for isn’t simple.”

  But it was possible. Petra felt hopeful, so she didn’t really mind when Master Stakan shooed them away as if they were little children tugging at his work apron. “Now you two go find something to do with yourselves.” He flapped his hands at them. “I have enough to do without worrying about you breaking something in the shop with your games.”

  “If you didn’t notice, we didn’t break anything!” Tomik protested.

  Before Master Stakan could respond, Petra tugged Tomik up the stairs. He followed her, grumpily stamping on the worn steps. “Apprentice? Me, his apprentice? Bellows-blower, is more like it. Pot-scrubber. Window-washer. Floor-sweeper. What does he need me as his apprentice for if he won’t let me do anything!”

  They entered his room in the attic. Tomik slammed the door shut behind them. The ceiling was low and the day was hot, so they sat with crossed legs on the floor.

  “He’s never even thought about the things I can do.” In a low, eager voice he added, “Do you want to see my latest invention?”

  “Of course,” Petra said. Curious, Astrophil stood on his tiptoes.

  Tomik leaned back on his elbow and dragged a beat-up box out from under his bed. He opened it, revealing dice made from pig knucklebones, a set of stubby charcoal pencils, and countless marbles. But as Petra looked more closely, she saw that two marbles were different from the rest. They were slightly larger, and something flickered inside each one. Tomik plucked the two glass balls from the box and held them out to Petra. She took one and discovered it was light and hollow. A star of bright light pulsed inside. “What is it?”

  “A bit of lightning. It wasn’t easy to get inside the glass, but easier than you might think.”

  “What do you mean?” Petra asked.

  “It’s pretty simple to manipulate lightning with magic. You see,” he explained confidently, “lightning and magic are kind of similar. Like cousins.”

  Petra studied him. “How do you know this? It sounds as if … as if you’ve been taking lessons.”

>   “Hardly,” he scoffed. “Who’d teach me? No, that stuff about the lightning was something your father said.”

  “My father? To you?”

  “Something I heard him say. Overheard,” he clarified. “You know how distracted he gets when he’s working on something. Before he left for Prague, I went to the Sign of the Compass one day on an errand for my father. Master Kronos was staring into space, talking to himself. He said something like, ‘I’ll start with the lightning. That will be the easiest step. The kinship between magic and energy. The kinship between kinds of raw power.’ I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, Petra.” He searched her face to see if she disapproved. “It’s just … I haven’t been getting any help about how to use magic from my father. So I’ve been paying attention to yours.”

  Petra was unsure how to respond. Tomik’s words immediately made her wonder if she had been paying enough attention to her own father. All she remembered of their conversations before Master Kronos had left for Prague was cogs, gears, dials, and pendulums. But lightning and magic? What did that have to do with making a clock?

  “Anyway,” Tomik continued, “hearing Master Kronos gave me the idea to try my experiment with lightning first. And I did it! But designing this sphere was nothing compared to trapping that fellow.” He lifted the second ball. Inside, a wasp darted back and forth and rapped its stinger against the glass: ping ping ping. “I thought I could use them for a prank on Mistress Jugo. The idea is that when you break the glass, whatever is inside the ball will multiply a hundred times.”

  “Do they work?” Astrophil asked.

  “Well, the one with lightning does. This is the second one I’ve made of that model. I tested the first one in a clearing in the forest and was really lucky I didn’t burn down any trees. There was also an aftereffect of thunder, which I didn’t think would happen. But I’m not sure whether this one works.” He carefully lifted the wasp marble. “I’m not even sure I want to know. I’d have to break it to make sure it works and … well, the wasps are supposed to attack whoever’s closest to the broken ball. But after making it I realized there was no one I disliked that much that I would send one hundred wasps after him. Kind of excessive, isn’t it? I mean”—he paused and listened to the wasp ping ping ping—“one is enough. Plus, this wasp might remember me and decide I’m a more interesting target than whoever’s closest by.”

  “Remember you?” Petra scoffed. “Don’t be silly. Wasps don’t have brains to remember with.”

  He grimaced. “It’s not its brains I’m worried about.”

  Petra took the ball from him. The thin glass buzzed under her grip, which tightened as she peered at the insect’s stinger. “Not a pretty sight,” she agreed, and passed both spheres to Tomik, who tucked them back into the box.

  “I thought of it because Lucie kept pestering me to make earrings for her in the shape of butterflies. Father told Lucie and Pavel that they could make the trip to Prague this year to sell our wares. Lucie wants to impress the city-folk. And Pavel.” He rolled his eyes.

  Lucie was his older sister. She was pretty, plump, and married to Pavel at the age of eighteen. She, Tomik, and Petra used to explore the woods together when they were younger. But the trio split up after Tomik and Petra suggested that Lucie wade in a muddy creek. Though they swore that they didn’t know the creek was full of leeches, Lucie was hysterical when she discovered little black blood-sucking globs stuck to her pale legs. Wailing, she jumped from the water and rolled on the grass, shoving at her brother and Petra as they tried to peel off the leeches. They finally convinced her to let them help, but tears poured down her face and she whimpered as every torn-off leech revealed a bruise-colored mark. After this incident, Lucie decided Tomik and Petra were not so much fun to play with. Frankly, they felt the same way about her.

  “I have better things to do than make her some ridiculous earrings,” Tomik continued, “but then I thought, What if I used real butterflies? That’d be pretty—but also pretty useless. Then I realized that breaking something takes energy, and I could use that energy to multiply whatever was in the shattered glass. But a hundred butterflies? That’s not so interesting.”

  “A hundred times prettier and a hundred times more useless than just one.”

  “Exactly,” Tomik agreed with a laugh.

  “Have you considered putting water inside?” Astrophil suggested.

  Tomik rubbed his chin. “There’s a thought. Smash the ball on a wall right next to somebody and they’d be completely soaked.”

  “You’d have to make sure the water multiplies more than a hundred times, though,” Petra pointed out. “One hundred drops of water isn’t very much. That’s not even enough to fill a small pitcher.”

  “True. Hmm …” Tomik’s eyes became unfocused as he considered how he might increase the magnifying power of the spheres. Then his gaze sharpened as he looked again at Petra. “But the concept is a good one, isn’t it? There are so many possibilities. I could multiply almost anything this way. What do you think?”

  “I think I’m jealous.”

  She meant this in an admiring way. Magical ability was extremely rare—that is, it was rare if you were not born into a noble family. And it was even more unusual for Tomik to be able to use his talent at a young age, since such talents did not typically begin to show themselves until about the age of fourteen. This was the age of adulthood, when the Academy tested children who were the sons and daughters of lords, high-ranking military officers, well-connected people, or those rich enough to make huge donations to the right people. Someone like Tomik would never be examined by the Academy, let alone admitted.

  Tomik closed the box with a snap. “I keep trying to show Father, but he stops me dead in my tracks every time. He’s either too busy or too tired. One minute he tells me that I’m too young to do any magic. The next minute he warns me that I’d better stop fiddling around with magic. He told me that his own magical abilities have brought him nothing but trouble, that his life would be a lot easier if he were a normal glassblower. I guess he lost some friends in the Guild.”

  Most cities and villages had a separate guild for each trade. Guilds were organizations that shared their trade secrets among themselves and established rules for how to craft an item and sell it. Usually, each town had a Glassblowers’ Guild, a Leatherworkers’ Guild, and so forth. But Okno was so small that if there had been a Glassblowers’ Guild, Tomik’s father would have been the only member. The same was true for many other artisans, including Petra’s father. So in this village there was only the Guild. Its members worked with one another—or mostly did. A leather shoe crafted by Mistress Chistni was cinched with a metal buckle made by Petra’s father. But Mistress Chistni’s leather was made supple by hours of labor, not magic. This was a fact that she was willing to forget when she worked with Master Kronos. Not all members of the Guild shared her attitude.

  So when Tomik stowed the box back under the bed and said, “Maybe we should keep this a secret,” Petra was not surprised.

  4

  Earth and Sun, Sun and Earth

  IT WAS DUSK when Petra left the Stakans’ home. The sun had set, and the clouds blushed pink. Above them, a dark blue nestled into the dome of the sky. One bright pinpoint of light twinkled like the lightning in Tomik’s sphere. Petra’s father had told her that bright stars like that were planets, just like earth. Just like earth? she wondered. Were the hills and valleys the same? Did people have the same problems? Maybe on that planet, things were different, and no one ever took what didn’t belong to them.

  A dog barked, but then the streets of Okno were quiet. The farmers had returned from the fields, and one window—the kitchen window —glowed with firelight in almost every house. She should hurry home to supper. But she hovered by the fountain in the center of town, and dipped her hands in the cool, dark water.

  Over the bubbling of the fountain, Petra heard the cries of swallows. The birds swooped in circles above her, seeking their evening meal.


  Astrophil burrowed deeper into her hair.

  “Scared, Astro?” Petra teased, trying to shake off her somber mood.

  “Merely cautious,” he whispered.

  “Do you think some skinny swallow is drooling for a tasty treat like you? Silly. Metal insects give birds indigestion.”

  “I am not an insect. I am an arachnid. There is a distinct and well-observed difference between the two.”

  “Astrophil, has anyone ever told you that you sound like a stuffy old schoolmaster when you’re afraid?”

  “Thank you. But this is not fear. This is irritation.” A swallow flapped close to Petra’s head and Astrophil squeaked. “Now can we go home, please?”

  WHEN PETRA ENTERED THE KITCHEN, Dita was standing by the fire, scooping boiled carrots with strings of thyme out of the large iron pot that hung over the logs. Josef and David were sitting at the oak table that was so thick that thudding your fist against it would make you feel the same way as striking the ground. You would only be aware of just how little an impression you were making on it.

  Josef was rather like the table at which he sat. He was a big man, muscular and brown. Deep lines marked his face. Petra’s father said that you could tell how old a tree was by counting the rings in a trunk that had been cut open. One ring meant one year. But if Petra were to count the wrinkles on Josef’s face in the same way, he would be ancient. And he was not even forty years old. He glanced at Petra and continued chewing. He was about as talkative as the table, too.

  Dita scraped Petra up and down with her eyes. She clearly wanted to yell at her for being late. But then, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, she seemed to decide that the day had been an unusual one, and allowances could be made for Petra’s behavior.