The Museum of Extraordinary Things

by Alice Hoffman

  I did not know Hannah Weiss and, if her sister was correct, I never would, but that didn’t matter.

  I could not let her go.

  MAY 1911

  PATHS ALONG the river were rife with swamp cabbage, and sweet peas, and meadow grass. Even the city work crews, most of them ill-paid Irish immigrants, who had arrived at dawn to shore up the banks with huge boulders, could not disturb the larks floating from tree to tree. The clouds in the sky reflected in the river, as if they were stepping-stones that might allow a man to walk across the water, all the way to New Jersey. Eddie fished every Saturday near the same spot. Each time he wished that he would come upon the trout he’d set free. People were said to revisit the scene of a crime, and dogs had been known to find their homes after traveling hundreds of miles, wasn’t it possible for a fish to be driven by memory?

  As Eddie trekked through the unfolding ferns, the undergrowth gave off the scent of cinnamon when it was crushed underfoot. He felt the watch inside his vest pocket, beating, as if he had a second heart. He’d brought along another bottle of rye, in case Beck gave him any trouble for again coming onto what he considered to be his land. He found a quiet place and hunkered down. Though it was early in the season, crickets were calling, and there was the hum of mosquitoes as they drifted over the shallows. Eddie had brought along his rod, but today he merely watched the stream, looking for a flash of silver. After an hour, and then two, he still saw only the shimmering water. Clearly, trout were smarter than men, choosing not to return to the site of their previous sorrows.

  He went to the shoreline and began to photograph the river, hoping to capture some of the beauty of the place. The air was soft, as it often was in this lovely month, and Eddie inhaled its sweetness. He found himself uplifted as he worked, caught up in something outside himself and his petty wants and needs. The clouds drifted like ice in a tumbler. Through his lens the river seemed made of light, there was the shimmer, and for a moment the world seemed whole to him. As the afternoon lengthened, the light began to fade. The river darkened and shadows cut through the woods. There was a shuffle in the bushes, most likely a covey of quail or a raccoon. Mitts, who had been so well mannered all day, now reverted to his exuberant ways. The dog didn’t wait to find out what his quarry was, or whether it was larger and more dangerous than he, before he leapt into the brush and disappeared. Eddie went crashing after him, calling out and whistling. Once darkness fell it would be all but impossible to find him, and there were said to be coyotes that stalked their prey in these valleys.

  Mitts’s bark echoed from the woods. Eddie did his best to catch up, but he was soon hindered by thick mud as he crossed several small rivulets. The land was a cattail marsh, and blue herons had begun nesting, with dozens of enormous nests set into the top branches of the tall, half-dead sycamores circling the wetland. Eddie finally reached firmer ground. The last of the day’s sunlight was a pale yellow drifting through the branches. Mitts was making a serious racket, growling low in his throat. The last time the dog had taken off Eddie had raced to find him in a clearing. Grabbing Mitts by the collar, he’d been struck by an unnerving sense that he wasn’t alone. For an instant he’d thought he spied the figure of a woman. A white shirt, masses of black hair, a slim beautiful form. But there was no one in sight, only the wavering branches.

  Now as he made his way over a grassy valley where Queen Anne’s lace and red clover grew wild, Eddie sighted a tar-paper shack. There was Mitts in the clearing, barking like mad. The dog, and now his master, had discovered Beck’s abode. On the porch, a wolflike creature had been tied to a post with a chain. The beast lunged at Mitts, but the chain snapped him backward. Mitts darted closer, enjoying the freedom of taunting the fierce creature. When Eddie ran to grab Mitts, the hermit’s monstrous pet did his best to reach the both of them, but got no farther than the first steps before he was pulled back. Eddie noticed the beast had yellow eyes. He wondered if Beck wasn’t a liar after all. No dog had eyes like that.

  There was enough of a racket to wake the dead, but apparently Beck had slept through most of the clamor. Now Eddie’s shouts had awoken him. He came out his door in a black mood, dressed in long underwear, holding a rifle. His unkempt hair was tied back, and he squinted through the falling dusk. He didn’t appear to recognize Eddie, for he aimed straight at his intruder.

  Eddie quickly threw his hands up to show he had no weapon, only his camera and equipment. “You know me,” he called. “The photographer.”

  When he held up his camera, he managed to pierce the hermit’s fog of sleep and drink. Beck nodded. “I know you’re around these parts far too often. You and the rabbit that pretends to be a dog.”

  “I presume that’s your dog.” Eddie eyed the snarling creature beside Beck.

  Beck snorted. “He’s a wolf.” He roughly patted the wolf’s head, and the beast quieted. All the same, the creature showed a glimmer of his teeth to Mitts, who submissively lay down in the ferns.

  The dark was settling in, and Eddie would have liked to take his leave and start for home; it was later than he’d hoped, and the journey was long, at least three hours. Still, he didn’t wish to offend the hermit. Not when the old man carried a gun and knew these woods better than the squirrels that ran through the brambles.

  “It’s one thing to have you steal my fish, but I sure as hell didn’t invite you here. It’s my home, you understand. No one else’s,” Beck said darkly.

  “This was the dog’s idea, not mine,” Eddie assured Beck. “He took off on me.”

  “Ah, Mr. Friendly.” Beck came down the steps. He fitted his rifle over his shoulder and nodded for Eddie to follow toward his campfire. “Now you’ve stayed so late you’re likely to drown if you try to make it out of here on your own.”

  Eddie shadowed the hermit to a ring of stones placed a few feet away from the shack, to ensure sparks from the fire wouldn’t fly onto the tar-paper roof.

  “Did you ever hear of the fish that climbed out of the Hudson?” Beck asked, as he took hold of the bottle of rye Eddie handed over, a peace offering quickly accepted.

  “I didn’t expect you to believe in fairy tales.”

  Beck grinned. “I believe in dogs with tails.”

  “In this world, a fish can’t walk,” Eddie ventured to say. “That much I know.”

  “It can if it has two legs.”

  There was a metal grill fitted over the campfire, used for cooking fish and game. Beck kept the sparks hot, and he quickly got the fire going by tossing on some tinder wood. Between this spot and the river was a series of freshwater bogs, some so deep the water reached a man’s waist, where there might easily be snapping turtles nesting. The hermit was right. In the dark it would be difficult going. Eddie had no choice but to placate Beck if he wanted to be led through the marshland.

  “Let’s just say I’ve never heard of a fish with legs,” he allowed.

  “You think you’ve heard of everything?” the hermit asked. “I’ve seen a fox change from red to white right before my eyes. One minute he was scarlet, the next it was as if snow had fallen down on him. You ever hear of that?” He gave Eddie a look. “No. I venture not.”

  Beck had reached for a battered kettle, into which he spilled some water from his rain barrel; he added ground coffee beans and soon enough signaled to Eddie, offering a cup of what appeared to be mud.

  “I think we’ve got the same thing in mind on this subject,” Beck said. “The fish with legs.”

  “Fishing will have to wait for another time.”

  Beck narrowed one eye. “You really do think I’m stupid. You’re too dumb to go night fishing. You’d wind up drowned.”

  They were sitting together on a log. Set up against the cabin was Beck’s canoe, a beautifully made hand-built boat fashioned of birch and poplar. Eddie hadn’t imagined the hermit capable of such fine work. People on the hill said that in the winter Beck carried his sk
iff along the ice until he located a current running through, for it was a rare season when the Hudson froze solid. A good fisherman knew where his catch could be found, regardless of the weather.

  “I don’t believe you’re stupid,” Eddie insisted. “Far from it.”

  “Do you believe in mermaids, then?”

  Eddie treaded carefully. He gave the hermit a swift sidelong glance as the old man began to pour rye into his coffee. “Do you?”

  “There you go. That proves you think I’m stupid. She wasn’t no mermaid. There’s no such thing. Just a flesh-and-blood woman once upon a time.”

  Eddie’s pulse shifted. When he’d worked for Hochman the process of finding someone always began this way. A single sentence could create the beginnings of a map.

  “Dead?”

  Beck gulped the last of his coffee and rye. “The dead are with us even as we walk. That much I know.”

  “We’re talking about a woman in the river?”

  “Now you’ve got it.” Beck clapped him on the back, pleased. At last Eddie was grasping his meaning.

  Eddie brought out the photograph from his vest pocket. “Did the fish on two legs look anything like her?”

  Beck peered at the photograph in the firelight, then handed it back. “Nope, didn’t look a thing like her. But the dead one did.”

  Eddie felt his pulse quicken. “There were two of them?”

  The hermit rose to his feet so he could douse the fire. For an instant, the world grew dark. “You want more information, you have to give me something in return,” he declared as he headed back to his porch, leaving his guest at the campfire to consider his offer. Eddie tried to figure out what the old man could possibly want of him while Beck pulled on a pair of old trousers. He wore high fishing boots that were caked with mud. The Dutchman grabbed a walking stick, then returned to the smoky fire pit. “We should get going, if you want to make it back tonight.”

  “What kind of deal did you have in mind?” Eddie hoped the price would not be too high; after having given his father his savings, he’d have to sell some of his belongings in order to have any ready cash.

  Beck nodded to his wolfish pet, sprawled out on the porch, head on his paws, watching their every move carefully. “You make sure he’s cared for if anything happens to me. Set him free.”

  “And where will you be while I manage to accomplish this without him ripping me to pieces?”

  “I’ll be dead. Otherwise I wouldn’t need you. I don’t want to be in my grave unable to rest because I’m fretting that the wolf is starving to death up in my cabin.”

  “Does he have a name?” Eddie eyed the beast, which eyed him in return.

  “You think a name means something? You are who you are, whatever you’re called. Call him No-name. Call him Mr. President. They’re the same to me. Just let me know where you stand. It’s a deal or it isn’t. Your choice.”

  The wolf was nothing Eddie wanted, but he took it on faith that the hermit would live a long and miserable life. Therefore, he nodded and they shook hands on the bargain.

  “And burn this place to the ground,” Beck said. “It’s good for nothing once I’m gone.”

  Eddie agreed to this as well. He wished to hear more about the mermaid, but Beck signaled that it was best for them to move on.

  Eddie tied fishing line through Mitts’s collar to ensure that the rambunctious pit bull would stay close. The hermit’s black boots stomped over ferns and low berry bushes as they headed for the river. Sparrows flitted by, dropping into the brambles to nest for the night. They went on for some time in silence, but when they reached a ridge, the hermit stopped. The moon was rising, already casting a white light across the long, sweeping view to the river.

  “You know how I knew she wasn’t no mermaid? Because her feet were bare. I was always told mermaids have no feet.” Beck pointed to a hollow. “That’s where I first spied them.”

  There was a bog to cross, and the earthy scent of mud rose up. Every step meant navigating the muck, which already reached their knees.

  “You want to go on?” Beck said, poking fun at Eddie’s obvious discomfort as he batted away gnats. “All sorts of creatures get stuck in there. I found the bones of a baby elephant a trader told me was a woolly mammoth. I’ll probably die in there myself one of these days.”

  Eddie gestured for his guide to go on. He hoisted Mitts and carried him through the deepest mud. The clay would dry up in the summer months, but during a damp spring, mud as thick as this could easily pull a man or a dog down as if it were quicksand.

  “Walk steady,” the hermit called over his shoulder. “Stop moving and you’ll sink into the land of the mammoths, my friend. I saw a man here at the end of March, stuck in right good, calling for his mother before he pulled himself out with a stick.”

  Clouds of gnats circled Eddie as he slogged along. On the other side of the bog there ran an old Indian trail followed by letter carriers before trains were used for mail delivery. Though mostly deserted now, recent wheel marks had been deeply driven into the mud by a horse-drawn cart.

  “I came down from the cliff because I’d seen the mermaid pull the other girl out of the water.”

  Eddie found himself spooked in this hollow. He wasn’t alone in that. Mitts set to whining, and Eddie ran a hand over the dog’s shivering flank to quiet him.

  “She ran away, that’s how I knew she wasn’t a mermaid. I saw she had legs. But she swims in this river the way something human never could. I’d seen her before. When she’d gone, I climbed down to the hollow to watch over the drowned girl. If I hadn’t stayed, the raccoons would have been at her. They would have torn her apart.

  “When I heard a carriage come near I took off. I figured the mermaid had gone to get help. But it wasn’t help she brought, just two men. One of them called the dead girl a treasure, so I knew he was a bad one. Death’s no one’s treasure, except for ghouls. The other fellow spoke up that they should leave her in peace, but the first one spat at that idea. Told him no, that wasn’t what they were about to do. So the one who drove loaded her onto the wagon. I should have shot them both before they took her.”

  The hermit looked at Eddie closely. “Too much for you to hear?” The old man reached into his jacket to bring forth the bottle of rye, which he offered companionably.

  Eddie gulped a bitter mouthful of the liquor. “Do you think they killed her?”

  “She was already gone before they got here. I checked. No breath. No heart. But somebody killed her for certain.” The hermit brought something out of his pocket. A strand of blue thread. “Her mouth was sewn shut. I couldn’t let her stay that way, so I told myself it would be like untangling fishing wire, otherwise it would have been too terrible a deed to undertake.”

  He gestured for his companion to take the thread, but Eddie recoiled.

  “I figured this would happen,” Beck grumbled. “You’re scared by a thread.”

  Eddie’s expression was dark; there was only so much insult he could take. “Thread doesn’t scare me. I used to be a tailor.”

  “Well, I used to be a baby,” the hermit responded. “Doesn’t make me one now.”

  Eddie reached out, and Beck deposited the thread in his outstretched hand.

  “The carriage men were there to steal the body,” the hermit said with a sober expression. “The one in charge seemed happy to do so. Not your mermaid, though. She was crying.”

  “My mermaid?”

  “You almost crashed right into her one night. She and I were both watching you and your rabbit.” He patted Mitts, who panted happily at the attention, tongue lolling. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t burn down my land, so I stayed up on the ridge. She was hidden in the trees. She’s a good swimmer, and she’s got good eyes. But you weren’t much good at seeing what was right in front of you. That’s why I’m leading you out now.”


  Eddie felt a burst of heat run through him. He must have glimpsed the girl. That was why he couldn’t rid her from his dreams.

  “Who is she?”

  Beck shrugged. “A girl that thinks she’s a fish. Maybe your trout brought her round. I told you that fish would lead you someplace.”

  “I don’t suppose you recognized the men.” An impossible, hopeless question Eddie didn’t so much ask as think aloud.

  “The first fella who almost drowned in the mud?”

  “No,” Eddie said. “The two with the body.”

  “Oh, I knew one of them, all right.”

  This was the way it happened, a single question that could crack open the world, letting in a shaft of light that might allow him to glimpse the truth.

  “I saw his picture in the paper years ago. He was a criminal.”

  It was dark where they’d stopped, but through the trees the water shone a silvered, glittering gray.

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Can’t read. I just use the paper to wrap my fish to soak in cold water. But I read his face just fine, and I remembered it. It was the same man I saw with your mermaid. He put the body under the seat. Then he stood behind the carriage and fed the blackbirds crumbs from his hand. Never seen anything like it.”

  Eddie felt a chill along his neck and back. Beck was describing a scene Eddie knew well. The first thing he heard every morning was the sound of the horses breathing in the stalls below him and the liveryman crooning to his pigeons as he sang their praises. Birds are smarter than you think. They never forget a kind word or a face. He’d often witnessed the liveryman feeding the blackbirds out in the alleyway as they perched along his arms, each one waiting its turn, as if entranced.

  “Now I’ve told you everything,” the hermit said, “and all that I have belongs to you when I’m gone.” They had reached the riverbank, the end of Beck’s territory and his world. “Don’t forget my wolf.”