Skycircus

by Peter Bunzl

  Saturday, 8th November 1884,

  Riverside Walk, Chelsea

  John’s partner, Professor Simon Silverfish, has visited us a number of times in the last month to discuss business. I have been telling him about my studies into hybrids when I was at college, brought about by my interest in Lovelace’s Flyology and the idea of creating someone with wings. He seems remarkably interested. He says it’s something he would like the company to work on. A second division, separate to the building of mechanicals, that would create hybrid machines that could be implanted or attached to people.

  John disapproves of this work, I can tell, but says nothing.

  I suggested to the professor that he might contact my old college tutor, Dr Droz, who is an expert in such matters.

  Droz again. With a heavy heart, Lily read on. On the second of the ripped pages she had grabbed, almost five years had passed. She would’ve been nearly six years old at the time it was written, and soon after she’d turned six, Mama had died.

  Saturday, 1st June 1889,

  Riverside Walk, Chelsea

  It was a beautiful afternoon. Lily and I spent the best part of it outdoors on the terrace, at the far end of the garden.

  There is a good deal of shade there beneath the topiary hedges, and also a darling folly – a summer house, with a secret passage running beneath it that leads back up to the main house. At the far end of the terrace, a weeping willow masks an iron gate that opens out onto a pier on the River Thames.

  Lily and I were sitting in deckchairs on the terrace around mid-afternoon when Professor Silverfish and Dr Droz paid an unannounced visit.

  Lily’s heart stopped in her mouth. She hadn’t realized she’d met Droz herself. She tried hard to picture his face in her mind’s eye, but could not. The most she could come up with was a grey cloud of hair. Then again, she had, she supposed, only been five. She searched the rest of Mama’s entry for more information, but there was nothing else about him…

  Mrs Rust – one of the new mechanical servants John has been constructing – brought us tea on the lawn. She was about to pour the tea when she started shaking awfully, as if she was having a terrible fit. It seems it was some kind of malfunction of the cogs in her primary motor cortex, but Dr Droz showed me how to turn her off with her winding key by setting it in her keyhole and turning it sharply anticlockwise, then opened her head and adjusted the cogs. When we subsequently rewound her and started her up again, she was perfectly fine.

  I told the professor and Droz that perhaps theirs and John’s mechanicals needed some additional work before the Hartman-Silverfish Company attempts to market them commercially and this caused much amusement.

  Lily seems to love Mrs Rust as much as she does me and John. She’s a remarkable child and treats these new mechanicals quite as if they were human.

  Lily finished reading, and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears flooded out and she brushed them away with the end of her scarf. She’d missed Rusty since she’d been here.

  And there was so much else to consider. It wasn’t true what the hybrids said about regular people – they weren’t all nasty and they wouldn’t all betray you. Mama had wanted to make hybrids because she thought it was a good thing. It was Droz and Silverfish who’d had bad motives that benefitted themselves.

  Lily knew she’d have to prove that to the hybrids if she was to persuade them to go through with her plan tomorrow night and come with her when they escaped.

  She tried to settle herself, but she couldn’t quite keep still. Her mind was still whirring with the new things she’d learned. She took out the next ripped page from Mama, and read on:

  Monday, 5th August 1889,

  Lyme Regis

  This morning we went fossil-hunting on the beach at Church Cliffs. It was quite windy. John had his walking cane with him and used it to point out some landmarks at sea. Rows of iron prison ships and a tall spider platform where they are drilling for oil and gas.

  Along the tideline of the bay I discovered a promising-looking stone submerged in the sand. I managed to break it open with my rock hammer and wash the two halves in the sea. Lily had been playing in the breakers nearby, but she ran up to me and asked what I had found.

  “A fossil,” I said, giving her the stone.

  Lily took the two halves from me and pulled them apart. When she saw the golden petrified ammonite within the stone, her eyes widened and she smiled.

  “The secret’s at the heart of it,” she said.

  At nearly six years old she already has the most amazing mind – sharp as a fox and flighty as a raven. She wants, no needs, to discover the truth behind everything. It compels her.

  She takes that stone everywhere with her and will not put it down. She’s continually asking me about it, probing for answers. I hope she remains as inquisitive always – one can achieve so much with attention, go so far.

  One day I intend to tell her about the Flyology project.

  Lily could remember that afternoon at the beach vividly. In the past, she’d dreamed about it often, and she still had Mama’s stone on her bedside table. She hoped she was still asking all the questions of others that she had asked of Mama back then. Mama had always told her the truth. At least, when she could. And she too wanted to be honest, but would the other hybrids trust her once they knew her mama had been involved with their hated creator? And would they still want to come with her once she and Robert got the lock picks back?

  It was all too much to think about. For now, there was only one thing left to do: sleep.

  Robert opened his eyes. He felt dishevelled and groggy from sleeping in his work clothes. Every muscle in his body ached from helping to set the site yesterday. His stomach rumbled loudly from lack of proper food, but he chose to ignore it and thought of Lily and Malkin instead. He needed to get the lock picks to them as soon as possible. Otherwise there was no chance of a break out tonight.

  Morning light tumbled in through the small porthole window. He sat up in his hammock and stared out through the streaked glass. From the height of the sun in the sky he guessed the hour to be around six in the morning.

  He still had a whole day to set things right.

  PRRIIIPP! PRRIIIPP! PRRIIIPP!

  Three short blasts of the whistle sounded in the hallway outside.

  Then there was a clank of bolts being pulled back and the door swung outwards. The Lunk loomed in the passageway, his big mechanical body filling the entire opening. He stood there silent and watching, his face expressionless, his headlamp eyes dead. His head turned from side to side, taking in Robert and the Buttons as if they were a puzzling new species of ant he’d just come across.

  Eventually the iron man raised his arm, beckoned them out of the cell and escorted them to the washroom, where they scrubbed themselves at long water troughs, and then on to the mess hall, where they each took a metal plate, cutlery and a tin can and lined up with the rest of the performers and roustabouts.

  Breakfast turned out to be an anaemic-looking roll and a cup of grey cocoa. The only thing that broke the silence was the horrible sound of multiple jaws crunching on stale bread, and multiple lips slurping the watery granules.

  Afterwards, the rest of the circus crew were given buckets and mops from the equipment store in the hull and set to work by the roustabouts, cleaning the ship. Silva and Dimitri managed to wangle Robert onto the laundry detail outside instead.

  The weather was finer than yesterday. Under the watchful eyes of Auggie and Joey, they took a laundry basket from the cargo bay and set it up on the grass. Then they rolled out three large wooden tubs, a washboard and a wooden dolly for agitating the clothes, plus an enormous copper pot for boiling up water. Every trip to the cargo bay wasted a little more time and the hours of the morning were quickly ticking away.

  The Lunk, who seemed to be the only one allowed outside the fence, brought wood for the fire.

  Silva showed Robert how to fill the tubs with buckets of cold water, which they drew from the hand pu
mp in the centre of the site. When the fire was lit they set the copper on it and filled that with more water and soap, soda and lye. As they tipped out all the laundry onto the ground and emptied each bag in turn and Robert’s guts twisted with hope that the next one might contain his things.

  But none did.

  “Where are my clothes?” he whispered to the others.

  “They might be in another basket,” Silva said. “Some of them aren’t due for washing today.”

  “Don’t worry,” Dimitri said quietly. “When they’re not watching, I’ll sneak into the cargo bay and check.”

  But the Lunk and the clowns were never not watching.

  To pass the time and avoid suspicion, Robert, Silva and Dimitri chatted casually as they worked.

  “How did Madame come to be here?” Robert asked, picking out a bright-red uniform with shiny brass buttons from the pile of clothes.

  “Nobody quite knows,” Silva replied, shaking out a checked suit that looked like it belonged to a giant. “I think she met Slimwood Junior nine months ago – the last time the Skycircus was in Paris.”

  “At the time they were looking for acts for the new season,” Dimitri explained, as he sorted through a big pile of handkerchiefs, throwing the spotted ones into a pile of colourful clothes and the white ones in with the shirts. “Madame must’ve bought a fake beard and made up that stupid stage name, and somehow landed a part in the show.”

  “Then old Mr Slimwood upped and died.” Silva glanced up at his juggling clubs hanging with the other mementos on the wall of the sky-ship, and dumped a pile of clothes in Robert’s arms. Robert found himself holding a handful of stockings, ladies’ bloomers and frilly drawers. The wrinkled, pleated, frilly and ruched shapes made him blush.

  “Some of us reckon the pair of them might’ve poisoned him.” Dimitri stuffed a handful of soiled clothes in the big copper pot to boil-wash them and picked up a bar of lye soap and began lathering it up in the hot water. Silva did the same. Robert copied them, then they took turns dragging items up and down the washboard. Sequins flew off everywhere, popping in all directions. Robert thought of Mrs Rust, who had to do this every day. No wonder her arms were so rusty – though at least she wouldn’t have rubbed-raw skin like his.

  Eventually, after they had been talking and washing clothes for one whole drudge-filled hour, the clowns and the Lunk had stopped paying them much attention.

  Silva tapped Dimitri on the shoulder and he slipped off and snuck into the hold, returning moments later with one extra bag.

  Robert pulled it open and saw with relief that all his clothes were still inside, along with his cap and Da’s coat, its pockets filled with the leather pouch of lock picks, his penknife, the stub of a pencil and the chocolate wrappers. Robert transferred everything quickly to the pockets of his new clothes, then stuffed the coat and cap back into the bag and hid it under a pile of dirty laundry for the time being.

  “I have to get these picks to Lily,” he said.

  “She’ll probably be in the Big Top with the other hybrids later,” Silva replied. “You can try and hand them over to her during the crossover between the hybrids’ and humans’ rehearsals. We have to go anyway, so we’ll help you if we can.”

  They finished scrubbing the washing and rinsed it out. There was no mangle so they just wrung each piece out by hand and pinned it wet to the washing line that stretched across the site. The clothes flopped heavily like dead bodies, drying slowly in the sun.

  While Dimitri turned the buckets and copper over to dry out, Robert and Silva gathered up the empty laundry bags. Robert hid his bag of clothes among them and hoped that no one would notice before he found somewhere else to conceal it. He didn’t like to think what would happen to him if anyone discovered that he’d stolen it back, let alone that he was plotting an escape; something terrible probably. It would be strike number three and no one survived three strikes.

  “INSPECTION TIME!” a voice shouted outside Room Thirteen.

  Lily sat upright in bed. She felt woozy and disorientated. She shouldn’t have stayed awake so late reading and thinking.

  Luca, Deedee and Angelique were already up, their clockwork limbs jittering and Angelique’s wings aflutter as they busily folded their covers into neat squares to make their bunk beds.

  “Get up quick!” Angelique hissed at Lily.

  Lily slipped on her red dress over her petticoat, with no time even to make her bed or to wind Malkin, she scrambled from her bunk.

  There was a clank of bolts being pulled back and the door swung inwards, hammering on the wall. Lily waited with bated breath as the hatch on the door shook. She hoped their temporary fix wouldn’t give and reveal what they’d been up to. If the hatch fell out now, her escape plan would be discovered.

  Her heart pounded fearfully against her ribs.

  Luckily, though it rattled a little, the hatch stayed in place.

  Slimwood paraded in, carrying his whip. “SURPRISE INSPECTION!” he shouted. “Nobody eats until I’ve checked this room.”

  Auggie waited in the doorway, carrying a tray with a metal tureen of gruel and four plates.

  “What do we do now?” Lily whispered to Luca.

  “QUIET!” Slimwood shouted at her. “No speaking unless you’re spoken to! That’s one strike on your copybook.”

  He brought the handle end of his whip down with a crash on Lily’s back; it smarted as hard as a balled, metal fist and made Lily cower like a frightened animal.

  Slimwood strolled slowly around the room, poking at each mattress with it.

  Finally he searched under the pillows, and found the pages from the red notebook. “Ah,” he cried snatching them up, “what are these?”

  “Please,” Lily said. “They’re my mama’s pages. Madame said I could keep them.”

  Slimwood glanced at the rumpled papers and shrugged. “Fair enough, but it’s another strike on your record.” He let them drop to the floor and stepped over them as they scattered at everyone’s feet. “You’re clean, Freaks. Inspection passed. Bring ’em their bucket of breakfast, but dock one portion for the new girl’s infractions.”

  Auggie placed the tray on the table, and as the pair of them left, slamming the door behind them, Lily rushed over and put her hand over the hatch, just in case it might fall.

  When she turned back into the room, she saw that Angelique and the others were busy picking up her papers.

  “You didn’t mention these yesterday,” Angelique said angrily.

  “That’s because they’re private.” Lily’s brain was still woozy, but the look of betrayal on Angelique’s face made a sudden flush of guilt pulse through her.

  “Droz,” Angelique said, gathering the papers up from the other two, her fists scrunching around their edges. “I can see that evil doctor’s name on every page.” She took a deep breath, but it did nothing to quench the anger in her eyes, and Lily felt instantly afraid, more afraid than she had been of Slimwood. At least she’d faced him with the others on her side – now she was suddenly on her own. She didn’t even have Malkin because there had been no time to wind him.

  Angelique was reading from one of the pages, her voice rising and falling with agitation as she narrated the entry at the front of the pile.

  Tuesday, 3rd September 1889,

  Riverside Walk, Chelsea

  Today I visited John at his new offices. I brought my daughter Lily with me and we dropped in on Professor Silverfish and Dr Droz in their laboratory.

  I’m so overjoyed with what they said that I will record it directly.

  “My dear Grace,” the professor told me, “we miss you at the factory.”

  “We need your insight and incisiveness,” Dr Droz added. “I cannot do my work without you. We want to develop the Flyology project further and begin work on our other hybrid ideas.”

  “What progress have you made?” I asked them.

  “We’re finally able to get human bodies to accept our designs on a cellular level,”
the good doctor replied.

  “And what has the guild to say about that?” I asked. “Is it a worthy idea?”

  “Why, what do you mean?” Dr Droz said. “What have you heard?”

  “John has told me the Mechanists’ Guild don’t approve of hybrid experiments. He warned me that they’d disbar anyone involved in them.”

  “But, Grace,” Droz said, “these developments are a good thing. They’ll help us cure illness and disease.”

  “Agreed,” Simon said. “All of us, at some time or another, may be in need of hybrid technology.” He winced and momentarily clutched his chest as if something was amiss, but then was all smiles once more.

  Considering it now, I can’t help but feel that both their sentiments about these new hybrid devices are right.

  Angelique stopped reading. “That doctor destroyed my life. Deedee’s and Luca’s too.” She paced back and forth across the floor of the cell, her knuckles white as she clasped her stick tightly, her wings twitching anxiously behind her. “And it seems your mama was a part of it.”

  “You lied to us!” Luca shouted angrily, snapping his claws together. His face had turned lobster red, and his eyes blazed venomously, so that he looked even more fearsome than he had in the show.

  “We trusted you,” Deedee said, her voice choked with emotion. “And you betrayed us. Even after we told you our stories, even then you wouldn’t tell us the whole truth.”

  “Please,” Lily begged, “I couldn’t. I thought…” She paused, lost for words. “But that page, it means nothing. Mama wasn’t like that, she was a good person. She never experimented on anyone. I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d be upset. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Please,” Lily pleaded, her eyes sharp with tears, her guts twisted up with guilt. “We have so much in common. I told you everything about myself – the truth of who I was – and I thought you three would understand.”